If 


U 


Westborough  Historical  Society 


GIFT    OF 


THE  STORY   OF  THE  STATES 

EDITED    BY 

ELBRIDGE   S   BROOKS 


PANEUIL  HALL. 


THE   STORY  OF  THE   STATES 


THE 


STORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 


BY 

EDWARD   EVERETT   HALE 


ILLUSTRATED 


BOSTON 

D    LOTHROP    COMPANY 

WASHINGTON    OPPOSITE    BROMFIELD    STREET 


COPYRIGHT,  1891, 

BY 

JD.  LOTHKOP  COMPANY. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER   I. 

THE    BAY   STATE II 

CHAPTER   II. 

THE    PILGRIM    FATHERS    IN    ENGLAND   AND    HOLLAND         .  2O 

CHAPTER    III. 

THE   PILGRIMS   AT   PLYMOUTH 44 

CHAPTER   IV. 

THE    EMIGRATION   TO   THE    BAY 50 

CHAPTER   V. 

THE    FIRST   WINTER 60 

CHAPTER   VI. 

BOSTON   COMMON   AND    FORT   HILL 75 

CHAPTER   VII. 

A   STUDY   OF   ANNE    HUTCHINSON 90 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

INDUSTRY   AND   COMMERCE Il6 


2034527 


CONTENTS. 
CHAPTER  IX. 

THE  PEOPLE   CALLED   QUAKERS         .  .  .  .  .  130 

CHAPTER  X. 

THE    FIRST   INDIAN    WARS 145 

CHAPTER  XI. 

SIR    EDMUND   ANDROS 162 

CHAPTER  XII. 

AN    INDEPENDENT   STATE.  —  THE   SALEM    WITCHCRAFT       .  176 

CHAPTER   XIII. 

THE    FRENCH   AND    INDIAN    WARS l86 

CHAPTER   XIV. 

LOUISBURG '.  206 

CHAPTER   XV. 

THE    BOSTON    MASSACRE  .......  238 

CHAPTER   XVI. 

LEXINGTON   AND   CONCORD        .  .  ;  .  V "     :  .  250 

CHAPTER   XVII. 

BATTLE   OF    BUNKER'S    HILL 266 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

MASSACHUSETTS   AT   SEA  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  283 

CHAPTER  XIX. 
SHAY'S  REBELLION '.'.'•.     '301' 


CONTENTS. 
CHAPTER   XX. 

THE   WAR   OF    l8l2 310 

CHAPTER   XXI. 

THE   CIVIL    WAR 320 

CHAPTER   XXII. 

MANUFACTURES 334 


LEADING    EVENTS 349 

STATE   GOVERNORS .  352 

INDEX o  354 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Taneuil  Hall  —  The  Cradle  of  Liberty  ....         Frontis. 

Burial  Hill  in  Plymouth 46 

Longing  for  the  Old  Home 64 

The  Cradock  House  at  Medford 72 

Training  Day  on  Boston  Common  in  Colonial  Days    ...  84 

Old  School  Days 128 

Old  Garrison  House  at  JJeerfleld 200 

Samuel  Adams 244 

The  British  are  Coming 252 

The  North  Bridge  at  Concord 260 

The  Yankee  Privateer  .  312 


•...-.- I  • . ,        - 


THE  STORY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE    BAY    STATE. 

THERE   are  two  ways  in  which  history  can  be 
written.     And   when   I  agreed    to  write   the 
Story  of  Massachusetts,  these  two  ways  were  open 
to  me. 

You  may  make  a  book  which  shall  condense  the 
annals  of  the  period  you  describe.  You  may  give 
as  much  effort  and  space  to  one  year  as  to  another. 
I  am  sorry  to  say  that  nine  out  of  ten  of  the  his- 
torians of  the  old  school  did  this,  and  it  may  be 
said,  in  passing,  that  this  is  the  reason  why  their 
books  are  generally  so  dull.  In  this  particular  case 
of  the  Story  of  Massachusetts,  we  have  two  hundred 
and  seventy  years  from  the  landing  of  the  Pilgrims 
at  Cape  Cod  to  the  day  when  I  write  these  words. 
I  have  about  the  same  number  of  pages  in  which  to 
condense  this  "Story  of  Massachusetts."  On  the 
theory  which  I  describe  therefore,  I  should  give  one 
page  to  the  narrative  of  each  year.  1775  would 
come  off  as  well  and  as  ill  as  1653  or  1819.  This 
would  be  called  accurate  work,  but  it  would  be 
dull  reading.  And  in  practice,  such  books,  when 
written,  are  never  read. 

11 


12  THE  BAY  STATE. 

The  other  method  is  that  which  I  shall  adopt. 
I  have  selected  twenty  occasions  of  critical  interest 
in  the  history  of  Massachusetts,  and  to  each  of  these 
I  will  give  a  chapter.  When  it  seems  necessary,  I 
will  show  the  connection  between  a  new  chapter  and 
that  which  came  before.  But  I  shall  not  pre- 
tend to  give  at  length  the  annals  of  Massachusetts 
since  her  birth.  A  story  is  not  a  book  of  annals. 

For  the  convenience,  however,  of  any  who  may 
wish  to  see  the  history  of  these  two  hundred  and 
seventy  years  brought  together  in  connected  form,. 
I  will  now  write  it  in  about  as  many  lines,  which  may 
serve  as  a  convenient  introduction  for  the  chapters 
which  follow. 

Massachusetts  was  probably  discovered  by  the 
Northmen  in  the  tenth  century.  In  1601,  it  wa& 
visited  by  Gosnold,  who  established  a  colony  in 
Buzzard's  Bay,  which  he  abandoned  the  same  year. 
In  1620,  the  first  permanent  settlement  was  made 
at  Plymouth,  by  the  colony  of  Independents,  who 
have  become  historically  famous,  as  the  "Pilgrim 
Fathers."  In  ten  years'  time,  this  little  colony, 
which  began  with  one  hundred  settlers,  numbered 
three  hundred. 

In  1630,  a  much  larger  colony  sailing  from  Eng- 
land, under  the  lead  of  John  Winthrop,  arrived  in 
Salem.  They  brought  with  them  the  charter  of 
the  trading  company,  which  had  obtained  the  grant 
of  Massachusetts  Bay.  This  charter  became  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  State  which  they  founded  and  which 
was  governed  under  it  for  sixty  years.  The  nurn- 


THE  BAY  STATE.  13 

bers  of  this  colony  increased  by  successive  emigra- 
tions from  England,  for  ten  years  ;  but  after  1640, 
more  people  returned  to  England  than  came  from 
England,  until  the  Revolutionary  War.  Among  the 
settlers  who  arrived  in  the  years  1633-34,  were  Anne 
Hutchinson  and  Sir  Harry  Vane.  Their  presence 
created  a  curious  commotion  in  the  colony,  never 
fully  explained,  and  the  colony  sustained  its  first 
great  misfortune  in  the  banishment  of  Mrs.  Hutch- 
inson and  most  of  her  adherents.  Vane  returned  to 
England.  The  colony  of  Connecticut  had  been 
settled  from  Massachusetts  in  the  meantime,  and  in 
the  year  1636,  the  two  colonies  overcame  the  Pe- 
quods  in  a  sharp  encounter  which  secured  them 
peace  from  Indian  ravage  for  nearly  forty  years. 

Those  forty  years  were  well  spent.  The  colonists 
and  their  children  with  habits  of  untiring  industry 
did  something  in  subduing  a  soil  which  was  most 
unpromising,  under  a  climate  that  was  most  capri- 
cious and  severe. 

In  their  fisheries,  they  drew  far  more  wealth  from 
the  sea  than  they  did  from  the  land.  Before  the 
century  was  over,  they  became  the  best  ship-builders 
in  the  world.  From  the  limited  text  of  the  charter 
of  a  trading  corporation,  they  evolved  a  working 
constitution  of  government.  And  thus  the  little 
State  seemed  in  a  manner  established,  when  in  the 
year  1675,  its  very  existence  was  threatened  by  a 
conspiracy  of  the  savage  tribes  under  Philip.  The 
numbers  on  each  side  were  about  equal,  and  both  par- 
ties fought  with  firearms.  The  issue  was  critical,  and 


14  THE  BAY  STATE. 

there  were  moments  when  it  was  even  probable  that 
the  colony  might  be  annihilated.  But  with  the  death 
of  Philip  in  1676,  such  fears  came  to  an  end.  Indian 
attacks,  however,  fomented  by  French  and  Jesuit 
enemies,  brought  horror  and  calamity  on  the  fron- 
tiers of  the  State  for  seventy  years  more.  The 
worst  enemies  of  the  colony,  however,  were  not  the 
savages. 

Hardly  had  Massachusetts  drawn  breath  from  this 
Indian  attack,  when  another  began  from  a  more  for- 
midable quarter.  The  ministry  of  Charles  the  Second 
began  to  inquire  what  that  colony  was  which  fought 
its  enemies  without  asking  for  aid  "  at  home,"  which 
had  indeed  gone  so  far  as  to  coin  money  without 
the  name  or  superscription  of  any  king.  Officers 
were  sent  over  to  make  inquisition  into  the  Colony's 
affairs,  and  to  such  officers  more  power  and  more  was 
given,  until,  at  the  very  end  of  Charles  the  Second's 
life,  the  original  charter 'was  revoked.  In  December, 
1686,  Sir  Edward  Andros  landed  —  as  a  Royal  Gover- 
nor under  the  commission  of  James  the  Second.  Until 
that  time  the  State  or  colony  had  always  chosen  her 
own  governor.  The  administration  of  Andros  seemed 
tyrannical,  indeed,  to  people  used  to  the  methods  of 
a  Republic.  And  on  the  eighteenth  of  April,  1689, 
in  a  popular  rising,  they  imprisoned  Andros  and  his 
associates  and  placed  in  authority  the  old  magistrates 
who  had  last  served  them  under  the  charter. 

Such  promptness  ingratiated  them  with  William 
the  Third,  who  had  taken  possession  of  the  Eng- 
lish throne.  But  he  was  a  man  who  believed  that 


THE  BAY   STATE.  15 

it  was  the  duty  of  a  king  to  reign  —  and  he  was 
deaf  to  all  solicitation  which  begged  him  to  restore 
the  old  charter  under  which  Massachusetts  had  been 
virtually  an  independent  republic  for  two  generations. 
He  gave  a  new  charter,  which  left  with  him  and  his 
successors  the  right  of  approval  of  all  province  laws, 
and  the  appointment  of  the  Governor  from  time  to 
time.  Under  this  charter  the  government  was  ad- 
ministered, until  Gage,  the  last  Royal  Governor, 
compelled  the  people  to  form  a  provincial  congress, 
in  1774,  which  virtually  took  into  its  hands  the 
government,  of  all  the  State  outside  of  Boston. 

The  colony,  as  it  was  called  until  1690  —  the  Prov- 
ince, as  it  was  officially  called  afterwards  —  was  of 
necessity  involved  in  the  complications  of  European 
politics,  when  these  brought  about  war  between  Eng- 
land and  France.  For  Canada  was  under  the  French 
crown,  and  any  war  gave  to  the  Jesuit  missionaries 
in  Canada  opportunities  to  precipitate  savage  attacks 
upon  the  frontier.  In  retaliation  for  these  attacks, 
all  the  four  New  England  Colonies,  led  by  Massa- 
chusetts, which  was  larger  and  stronger  than  all  the 
rest  put  together  —  made  counter-attacks  on  Canada, 
which  lasted  until  Wolfe  took  Quebec  in  1758. 
These  conflicts  are  spoken  of  by  our  local  chroniclers 
as  "  King  William's  War,"  "  Queen  Anne's  War," 
or  in  general  as  "  the  French  and  Indian  wars." 
They  involved  one  and  another  effort  against  Quebec, 
and  different  enterprises  against  the  sea-coast  prov- 
inces, of  which  the  most  important  was  that  which 
resulted  in  the  capture  of  Louisburg.  To  these 


16  THE  BAY  STATE. 

struggles  belong  the  horrible  Indian  massacres, 
which  make  so  large  a  part  of  the  history  of  every 
old  town  in  Massachusetts,  which  was  at  any  time 
near  her  frontier. 

In  the  year  1763,  so  soon  as  the  Seven  Years'  War 
was  well  out  of  the  way,  the  foolish  ministry  of, 
George  the  Third  undertook  to  tax  the  American 
colonies,  by  way  of  reimbursing  the  government  for 
its  expenses  in  that  war.  Such  was  the  excuse  made 
at  the  time.  The  measure  really  belonged  to  that 
absurd  policy  by  which  the  court  party  hoped  gradu- 
ally to  undo  the  work  of  the  English  Revolution. 
The  young  king  himself  who  had  come  to  the  crown 
in  1760,  had  this  fatal  dream  of  enlarging  the  royal 
power.  He  went  so  far  as  to  make  himself  what 
has  been  called  "  a  Brummagem  Louis  the  Four- 
teenth." The  American  colonies  instantly  resisted 
this  attempt  at  taxation  without  representation. 
They  were  led  by  Massachusetts  and  Virginia,  which 
were  the  two  strongest  and  largest  of  the  "  old  thir- 
teen." From  this  resistance  began  the  Revolutionary 
War  and  the  independence  of  the  nation  was  born 
from  it. 

The  Continental  army,  which  was  in  large  part 
made  up  at  that  time  from  the  militia  of  Massa- 
chusetts, drove  the  English  governor  and  army  from 
Boston  in  March,  ]776.  And,  from  that  time  to 
this,  no  part  of  Massachusetts  has  been  permanently 
occupied  by  a  foreign  enemy  excepting  the  port  at 
Penobscot,  which  was  then  in  the  wilderness  of 
Maine,  for  a  short  time  at  the  end  of  the  Revolution- 


THE  BAY  STATE.  17 

ary  War.  Massachusetts  gave  her  loyal  support  to 
the  contest  which  she  and  Virginia  may  be  said  to 
have  originated.  She  furnished  more  than  half  the 
men  for  the  Continental  Army,  and  probably  nine 
tenths  of  the  men  for  that  naval  war  which,  more 
than  any  military  successes  on  land,  brought  the 
king  to  grant  independence.  While  the  natural 
industry  of  the  State  was  broken  up  by  the  war,  the 
new  industry  of  privateering  took  its  place.  To  a 
very  large  degree  it  was  the  success  of  privateering  at 
sea  which  enabled  the  new-born  State  to  do  her 
duty  so  efficiently  on  the  land. 

The  hopes  which  belong  to  peace  after  eight 
years  of  war  were  not  justified.  Rivalries  and 
misunderstandings  between  the  States  so  recently 
united  checked  all  commercial  prosperity.  The  new- 
born nation  was  not  a  nation,  because  it  had  no 
government.  At  the  instance  of  Washington  and 
his  friends,  the  national  constitution  was  formed  and 
it  went  into  effect  on  the  thirtieth  of  April,  1789. 
As  one  part  of  the  nation  of  the  United  States, 
Massachusetts  has  enjoyed  prosperity  and  her  people 
have  enjoyed  happiness,  such  as  seldom  fall  for  so 
long  a  period  to  one  community. 

This  may  be  said  indeed  with  few  exceptions  for 
the  two  hundred  and  sixty  years  since  the  time  of 
Winthrop.  And  whoever  reads  or  writes  the  Story 
of  Massachusetts  must  remember,  that  such  pros- 
perity is  due  to  an  inborn  habit  of  her  people,  which 
springs  from  the  religious  conviction  of  the  Puritan 
colony.  There  is  a  passion  for  work  in  Massachu- 


18  THE  BAY  STATE. 

setts.  From  this  her  prosperity  and  her  history  are 
born.  The  real  Massachusetts  man  likes  to  subdue 
the  earth.  He  believes  God  bade  him  subdue  it. 
If  he  cannot  do  it  in  one  way  he  does  it  in  another. 
Wholly  beneath  all  changes  of  charter  or  dynasty, 
quite  irrespective  of  government  or  of  law  is  the 
passion  to  create  something  which  did  not  exist  before. 
The  Massachusetts  man  does  not  do  this  simply 
because  he  is  hungry  or  naked  or  cold.  He  does  it 
because  God  sent  him  to  do  it.  The  motto  of  the 
State  might  be, "  Do  all  to  the  glory  of  God."  If  he 
cannot  raise  wheat,  he  catches  beaver.  If  he  can- 
not catch  beaver,  he  catches  codfish  and  mackerel. 
If  he  cannot  catch  these,  he  builds  ships  and  sells 
them ;  or  he  uses  them  himself,  or  he  pursues 
whales  over  the  world.  If  he  may  not  go  for  fish 
and  for  whales,  he  goes  for  the  enemy  who  forbids 
him.  If  the  folly  of  his  own  government  breaks 
up  his  commerce  by  sea,  instead  of  that  he  begins 
a  great  system  of  manufacture  by  land.  If  the 
changes  of  commerce  put  an  end  to  the  voyages  by 
which  he  made  himself  at  home  in  the  Pacific,  he 
builds  one  and  another  system  of  railways  to  unite 
the  two  great  oceans,  and  is  recognized  as  the  master 
of  a  commerce  a  hundred  times  larger  than  that  in 
which  he  engaged  before. 

It  is  this  passion  to  control  nature,  existing  among 
all  her  children  who  are  true  to  the  maternal  in- 
stinct, that  has  made  Massachusetts  what  she  is.  I 
have  selected  twenty  passages  in  the  course  of  the 
development  which  has  followed  on  this  determina- 


THE  BAY  STATE.  19 

tion,  by  way  of  giving  to  the  reader  an  interest  in 
her  history.  I  have  chosen  some  because  they  are 
critical,  some  because  they  are  picturesque.  I  hope 
they  will  prove  so  interesting  that  the  reader  may 
go  himself  into  the  larger  record  and  find  other 
stories  in  that  fascinating  field. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE    PILGRIM    FATHERS    IN    ENGLAND    AND    HOLLAND, 
1602-1620. 

SIMPLE  people  in  England  were  seeking  God 
with  the  first  enthusiasm  of  the  freedom  of 
Protestantism. 

They  could  not  bear  the  machinery  of  the  service 
in  the  parish  church.  They  could  not  bear  the 
interference  of  the  officers  of  the  government.  They 
did  not  like  to  read  their  prayers  from  a  book. 

And  it  would  happen,  and  did  happen,  that  people 
would  give  up  stated  and  regular  church-going  on 
Sunday,  so  that  they  might  meet  in  what  our  time 
would  call  a  "  conference  meeting,"  where  prayer 
and  song  and  exhortation  were  more  simple  than 
they  found  them  in  the  Church  service. 

Especially  would  this  happen  when  a  conscientious 
preacher  in  the  parish  church,  who  had  a  body  of 
Iparishioners  tenderly  bound  to  him,  found  that  he 
was  too  hardly  pressed  by  the  bishop  or  by  other 
authorities,  and  that  he  must  give  up  his  charge  of 
that  people. 

Such  a  minister,  when  he  left  the  parish  church, 
did  not  leave  alone.  He  left,  and  the  people  who 
loved  him  best  liked  to  go  with  him  —  at  least  on 
the  Lord's  Day.  This  was  what  happened  when 

20 


THE  PILGRIM  FATHERS.  21 

Richard  Clifton,  a  minister  in  the  English  Church, 
was  forced  to  give  up  the  ministry  of  the  parish 
church  at  Bawtry,  not  far  from  Doncaster,  in  the 
West  Riding  of  York.  He  was  in  his  fiftieth  year  in 
1602.  He  was  intensely  in  earnest  in  his  religion 
and  his  preaching.  But  he  did  not  agree  with  the 
bishop,  and  the  bishop  ordered  him  to  give  up  his 
charge.  And  he  did  so. 

With  him  was  John  Robinson,  a  learned  and  con- 
secrated man,  who  was  the  spiritual  leader  of  these 
people,  and  one  of  their  wisest  counselors  for  twenty 
years  and  more. 

To  join  with  Clifton  and  with  Robinson  in  wor- 
ship, to  study  Scripture  under  their  lead,  a  company 
of  humble  people  met  week  by  week  in  a  house 
known  as  a  "  manor-house,"  which  belonged  to  the 
Archbishop  of  York,  at  Scrooby  in  the  northern  cor- 
ner of  Nottinghamshire,  near  Lincolnshire,  in  the 
east  of  England.  In  this  manor-house  lived  William 
Brewster,  who  was  one  of  their  number,  and  he 
gave  them  the  use  of  the  rooms  of  the  manor-house 
for  their  Sunday  service.  Many  of  them  walked  or 
rode  for  a  considerable  distance  that  they  might 
meet  here,  and  Brewster  entertained  them  hospit- 
ably when  they  came. 

This  manor-house  may  be  said  to  have  foreseen  the 
birth  of  the  Massachusetts  of  to-day.  For  this  com- 
pany of  people  were  to  be  the  founders  of  New 
England.  The  house  has  long  been  a  ruin,  but  a 
part  of  one  of  the  outbuildings  remains.  It  is  a  little 
odd  that  the  first,  and  indeed  the  only  account  we 


22  THE  PILGRIM  FATHERS. 

have  of  it,  should  come  to  us  in  a  letter  from  the 
King  of  England  of  that  day  —  no  other  than  the 
fool  King  James.  When  he  received  the  great  and 
fatal  message  which  announced  to  him  that  he  was 
King  of  England,  he  mounted  his  horse  for  the 
expedition  to  London,  and,  with  a  numerous  suite, 
he  made  his  first  "progress"  to  his  new  capital. 
On  the  way  he  hanged  a  thief  at  Nottingham,  by 
his  own  prerogative,  —  a  thing  no  English  king  had 
any  right  to  do  then  or  now,  — and  the  act  shocked 
people  as  a  bad  omen.  The  day  before  this,  they 
hunted  as  they  rode,  and,  instead  of  stopping  to  eat 
a  state  dinner,  at  some  nobleman's  house,  they 
lunched  in  the  open  air  near  the  manor-house  of 
Scrooby.  The  king  remembered  the  pleasant  day, 
and,  so  soon  as  he  arrived  in  London,  he  wrote  to 
this  Archbishop  of  York,  to  ask  him  to  sell  to  him 
the  manor-house  in  Scrooby,  that  he  might  make  a 
hunting  lodge  of  it.  How  the  matter  ended  nobody 
now  knows.  Perhaps  the  archbishop  asked  more 
money  than  the  frugal  king  liked  to  pay.  Perhaps 
the  king  forgot.  If  he  had  bought  the  lodge,  maybe 
it  would  be  standing  now,  —  one  of  the  places  which 
the  Board  of  Woods  and  Forests  have  to  see  to.  In 
that  case,  we  would  ask  them  to  let  us  hang  on  its 
walls  a  picture  to  commemorate  a  Sunday  service 
there,  where  should  be  present  Clifton  and  Robinson 
as  preachers,  and  William  Bradford  and  William 
Brewster  in  the  little  parlor  congregation. 

These  simple  people  did 'not  meet  merely  to  wor- 
ship God.     They  believed  in  the  magic  of  "  Together." 


THE  PILGRIM  FATHERS.  23 

They  agreed  to  help  each  other.  In  the  phrase  of 
their  time,  they  "  joined  themselves  as  the  Lord's 
free  people  into  a  church  estate  in  the  fellowship  of 
the  Gospel,  to  walk  in  all  His  ways,  made  known  or 
to  be  made  known  to  them,  according  to  their  best 
endeavors,  whatsoever  it  should  cost  them."  Many 
New  England  readers  will  remember  some  of  these 
words  in  the  covenants  of  New  England  churches  to 
this  day.  To  the  little  congregation  which  met  at 
Scrooby,  the  words  meant  no  mere  formal  connection, 
registered  on  paper,  but  that  those  who  were  thus 
joined  were  to  stand  by  each  other  and  the  associa- 
tion in  whatever  hardship.  "  That  it  cost  them 
something,"  —  so  William  Bradford  says  when  he 
records  the  words,  — "  this  history  will  declare." 
Bradford  had  himself  withdrawn  from  the  communion 
of  the  parish  church,  having  come  under  the 
influence  of  Clifton,  and  been  brought  "  into  the 
company  and  fellowship  of  such  as  were  then  called 
professors."  For  doing  this,  he  met  the  wrath  of 
his  uncles  and  the  scorn  of  his  neighbors.  But 
none  of  these  things  turned  him  from  his  pious 
inclinations. 

But  such  inclinations  were  not  to  be  pursued 
quietly  in  those  days.  "  I  will  harry  them  out  of 
the  country,"  said  the  Fool-King,  "  or  else  worse." 
And  his  officers,  up  and  down  through  the  country, 
watched  for  indications  of  such  heresy  as  Bradford's 
and  Brewster's,  and  watched,  of  course,  successfully. 
Some  of  the  "professors  "  were  put  in  prison.  Most 
were  obliged  to  leave  their  houses  and  places  of 


24  THE  PILGRIM  FATHERS. 

work,  to  hide  away  from  their  persecutors.  If  they 
were  to  maintain  their  habit  of  worship,  if  they  were 
to  be  banded  together  as  a  religious  society,  it  could 
not  be  in  England.  Like  other  persecuted  men  of 
the  time,  they  saw  that  they  must  go  to  Holland. 

And  to  Holland  they  went,  though  it  proved  to 
be  as  hard  to  go  as  to  stay.  Sometime  in  1607  they 
determined  to  emigrate,  and  tried  to  go.  But  even 
then  the  king  and  his  crew  were  not  satisfied  to  let 
them.  A  large  number  of  them  had  met  at  Boston, 
in  Lincolnshire,  and  had  hired  their  own  ship,  the 
master  of  which  agreed  to  take  them  on  at  night. 
But,  after  they  and  their  goods  were  on  board,  he 
betrayed  them.  The  officers  of  the  Crown  and 
Church  seized  them,  searched  them,  carried  them  back 
to  the  town,  and  reported  their  attempt  to  the  Lords 
of  the  Council.  All  of  them  were  kept  in  prison  for 
a  month ;  then  all  but  seven  were  released ;  but  for 
most  or  all  of  them,  the  plan  of  Holland  was  post- 
poned to  another  year. 

In  the  spring  of  1608,  some  of  the  same  party 
with  some  others  made  another  effort.  This  time  it 
was  a  Dutchman  who  took  this  party  on  board.  It 
must  have  been  Bradford's  party.  But  after  the 
first  boat-full  was  on  board,  the  master  spied  a  great 
company  on  shore,  both  horse  and  foot,  with  bills 
and  guns  and  other  weapons,  for  the  country  was 
raised  to  take  them.  The  Dutchman  swore  an  oath, 
"  Sacrement !  "  weighed  his  anchor  and  sailed,  leav- 
ing more  than  half  the  party.  It  was  harder  to 
emigrate  from  England  in  those  days  than  it  is  now. 


THE  PILGRIM  FATHERS.  25 

These  are  but  two  stories  of  such  experience,  where 
Bradford,  their  historian,  says  he  could  tell  many. 
But  in  the  end  they  all  got  over  to  their  new  country, 
"and  met  together  again  according  to  their  desires, 
with  no  small  rejoicing."  Robinson,  Clifton,  Brew- 
ster  and  other  principal  members,  "were  of  the  last, 
and  stayed  to  help  the  weakest  over  before  them." 
They  had  arrived  in  August,  1608. 

They  would  hardly  have  come  to  Holland  but  for 
the  suspension  for  a  time  of  the  "Thirty  Years' 
War."  The  long  truce  of  twelve  years  had  begun. 
And  that  truce  covers  the  longest  period  which  any 
of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  spent  in  Holland,  up  to  the 
time  of  their  second  emigration,  which  brought 
them  to  America. 

They  went  first  to  Amsterdam.  But  there  they 
found  that  the  English  Church  of  Smith  or  Ains- 
worth  —  one  founded  much  as  their  own  had  been 
established  —  was  in  a  hot  quarrel,  in  which  these 
people  did  not  care  to  join. 

After  a  stay  of  several  months  in  Amsterdam,  the 
Company  determined  to  remove  to  the  University 
city  of  Leyden,  some  miles  away.  John  Robinson 
asked  leave  in  their  behalf,  that  they  might  settle  in 
Leyden,  and  the  burgomaster  gave  permission  on  the 
twelfth  of  February,  1609.  Soon  after,  the  new 
emigration  was  made.  The  company,  all  told,  was 
about  one  hundred  persons.  It  was  to  increase  con- 
siderably during  their  stay  in  Holland. 

The  reader  of  our  time  may  get  some  idea  of  the 
aspect  of  Leyden  from  the  frequent  studies  which 


26  THE  PILGRIM  FATHERS. 

( 

have  been  attempted  to  illustrate  the  life  of  Spinoza, 
who  lived  there  a  generation  later.  The  exact  con- 
temporary of  Robinson,  Brewster  and  Bradford  was 
the  eminent  theologian  Polyander.  He  says  in  a 
pleasant  way,  "  Of  the  four  quarters  of  the  globe, 
Europe  is  the  noblest  and  finest;  the  Low  Countries 
are  the  best  part  of  Europe ;  of  the  seventeen  prov- 
inces of  the  Low  Countries,  Holland  is  the  richest, 
the  most  flourishing,  and  the  finest ;  the  most  beau- 
tiful and  altogether  charming  city  of  Holland  is 
Leyden  ;  while  the  handsomest  canal  and  loveliest 
street  in  Leyden  is  the  Rafenburg."  As  he  lived  in 
the  Rafenburg,  his  conclusion  was  that  he  was 
lodged  in  the  most  beautiful  spot  in  the  world.  The 
city  is  not  much  changed  probably,  to-day,  and 
travelers  still  testify  to  its  cheerful  attractions. 

This  little  company  of  hard-working  men  and 
women  could  not  make  the  same  boast  that  Polyan- 
der made,  that  they  had  the  best  of  Leyden.  But 
they  had  what  they  came  for.  First  of  all,  they 
had  the  "Together"  which  they  had  dreamed  of; 
they  had  the  United  Life  to  which  they  had  pledged 
themselves  in  their  church  covenant.  The  mere 
incident  of  language  kept  them  in  close  relations 
with  each  other,  while  it  kept  them  more  or  less 
distinct  from  their  Dutch  neighbors.  Robinson  had 
the  association  with  the  staff  of  truly  learned  men 
who  were  teachers  and  students  in  the  Universit}*-, 
—  Europe  could  hardly  have  shown  a  more  distin- 
guished company  of  scholars  at  that  time.  The 
English  men  and  women  were  willing  to  work,  and 


THE  PILGRIM  FATHERS.  27 

they  found  work  to  do.  Dr.  Dexter  has  discovered, 
by  diligent  study  in  the  Ley  den  documents  of  that 
time,  that  there  were  among  them,  hat-makers, 
wool-carders  or  combers,  twine-spinners,  journeymen 
masons  and  carpenters,  and  makers  of  tobacco-pipes. 
Brewster  established  himself  as  a  printer.  His  type 
was  bought  from  the  Elzevir  foundries,  for  it  is  of 
their  patterns  and  from  their  dies.  And  a  book 
with  his  imprint  is  now  among  the  most  precious 
treasures  of  the  American  book-lover.  William 
Bradford,  afterward  to  be  governor,  served  an  ap- 
prenticeship with  a  Frenchman  at  weaving  silk.  He 
is  afterward  spoken  of  as  a  dyer  and  fustian-maker. 
He  was  not  twenty-one  when  the  emigration  from 
England  took  place.  As  soon  as  he  was  of  age,  he 
sold  his  property  in  England,  and  invested  it  in  his 
new  business. 

In  January,  1611,  Robinson,  with  three  others  of 
the  company,  bought  a  large  house  and  garden  near 
to  the  university  and  cathedral.  The  price  they 
paid  was  eight  thousand  guilders,  of  which  a  quarter 
was  paid  down,  and  the  rest  secured  by  mortgage. 
They  obtained  possession  the  next  year,  and  from 
that  time  this  large  house  became  the  place  of  wor- 
ship of  the  church.  One  of  the  purchasers,  Jepson 
by  name,  was  a  carpenter.  He  built  on  the  vacant 
land  twenty-one  houses.  These  were  occupied  by 
the  several  families  of  the  church,  and  they  thus 
organized  a  visible  settlement  of  their  own  within 
the  city.  Many  companies  of  people  who  loved 
«ach  other  have  dreamed  of  such  an  establishment. 


28  THE  PILGRIM  FATHERS. 

It  does  not  often  happen  that  so  simple  a  way  to 
carry  out  the  dream  appears.  Twenty-two  families 
must  have  comprised  nearly  all  the  original  mem- 
bers of  the  first  emigration. 

With  hard  and  continual  work  they  made  a  com- 
petence and  a  comfortable  living.  They  worked  at 
their  trades,  were  never  persecuted  or  annoyed,  and 
enjoyed  the  privileges  they  sought.  So  happy  and 
comfortable  was  their  condition,  and  so  public  the 
circumstances  of  their  removal,  that  their  numbers 
enlarged  considerably,  from  recruits  from  England, 
while  they  were  in  Holland.  For  here  was  a  society 
of  Christian  men,  with  whom  men  and  women  of 
tender  conscience  could  unite  in  worship  and  relig- 
ious conversation,  and  could  bear  one  another's 
burdens.  They  were  living  a  pleasant  life,  not 
oppressed  by  government  and  fearing  no  man,  and 
though  they  lived  in  a  foreign  city,  there  were  so 
many  of  them  that  one  could  speak  the  English 
language  as  if  he  were  at  home.  So  it  was  that 
Edward  Winslow  and  his  young  bride  joined  them  ; 
that  John  Carver  and  his  bride  joined  them ;  that 
Captain  Miles  Standish,  who  had  fought  in  the 
Spanish  wars,  joined  them.  Others  joined  them 
whose  names  are  now  remembered  in  the  company 
of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers.  Indeed,  of  all  the  little 
company  who  landed  at  the  American  Plymouth, 
Brewster  and  Bradford  are  the  only  two  who  can 
be  certainly  said  to  have  belonged  to  the  Scrooby 
congregation.  It  is  almost  certain  that  Edward 
Southworth  was  a  third,  and  there  are  many  names 


THE  PILGRIM  FATHERS.  29 

of  which  the  history  is  not  known,  who  were  prob- 
ably of  that  company. 

Holland  was  proud,  as  it  had  reason  to  be  proud,  of 
its  reputation  as  a  harbor  of  heretics.  And,  as  it  hap- 
pened, the  emigrants  from  Lincolnshire  were  stiffly 
Calvinistic,  so  that  they  were  in  sympathy  with 
the  successful  religious  party  of  their  day.  Thomas 
Prince  and  George  Sumner  and  more  lately  Dr. 
Dexter  and  Rev.  John  J.  Lewis  have  done  the  best 
that  could  be  done  in  long  pilgrimages  to  Leyden,  to 
find  traces  of  their  stay  there.  But  there  was  not 
much  to  find.  The  Pilgrims  did  not  court  the 
society  of  the  Dutch,  nor  did  the  Dutch  court  theirs. 
John  Robinson  was  matriculated  as  a  member  of  the 
University  in  1615.  The  use  of  the  library  must 
have  been  a  great  gift  to  him.  It  gave  him  oppor- 
tunities which  he  did  not  have  in  England.  While 
he  was  here  he  wrote  treatises,  which,  though  no  one 
reads  them  for  his  light  reading,  hold  their  own  in 
comparison  with  other  theological  literature  of  their 
day,  and  one,  at  least  of  these  books,  was  printed  in 
Leyden,  probably  by  Brewster.  Bradford  describes 
one  occasion  when,  in  a  public  disputation  in  Latin, 
John  Robinson  put  Bischoffs,  known  as  Episcopius, 
the  great  defender  of  Arminianism,  "  to  an  evident 
nonplus."  This  must  have  been  greatly  to  the 
delight  of  these  worthy  English  weavers  and  dyers 
and  printers,  who  took  a  half-holiday  that  they 
might  enjoy  the  spectacle,  and  who  could  applaud 
the  Latin  of  their  pastor  when  Brewster  gave  the 
signal,  even  if  they  could  not  follow  the  argument. 


30  THE  PILGRIM  FATHERS. 

But  it  is  hard  to  triumph  much  now  in  such  victories, 
in  a  day  when  most  Christians  would  agree  that 
Episcopius  was  probably  in  the  right  and  Robinson 
in  the  wrong. 

Still  he  did  not  think  he  was  in  the  wrong.  And 
neither  Robinson  nor  any  of  the  rest  of  them  loved 
dispute.  Let  us  remember  that.  In  the  horrible 
and  wretched  controversy  between  Calvinist  and 
Arminian,  which  in  1619  brought  the  brave  and 
pure  John  of  Barneveldt  to  the  block,  these  English- 
men had  no  share,  so  far  as  appears,  except  in  the 
windy  dispute  we  have  described.  They  left  Am- 
sterdam that  they  might  keep  out  of  one  quarrel. 
And  when,  in  1617.  they  began  to  think  of  leaving 
Holland,  one  of  the  reasons  given  is  that  they  might 
not  be  engaged  in  the  contentions  there.  Indeed, 
the  truce  between  Spain  and  her  provinces  was  near 
an  end,  and  they  did  not  wish  to  embark  in  the 
fortunes  of  war  with  Spain. 

In  1617,  the  society  numbered  between  two  and 
three  hundred  male  members.  In  that  year  they  be- 
gan seriously  to  discuss  the  question  of  removal  to 
America,  and  a  considerable  majority  determined 
to  go.  They  were  a  societ}7,  and  they  wanted  to 
remain  a  society.  Where  to  go  was  more  doubtful. 
Raleigh's  accounts  of  Guiana  were  new  to  English 
readers,  and  were  very  attractive.  A  few  more 
votes  in  favor  of  Guiana,  and  this  author  would  be 
writing  the  story  of  the  Pilgrims  under  a  palm-tree, 
and  this  reader  would  be  reading  as  he  sipped  his 
lemonade  in  a  canoe  tethered  to  a  Victoria  Regia. 


THE  PILGRIM  FATHERS.  31 

The  party  more  attached  to  England  and  England's 
ways  preferred  to  try  Virginia,  as  the  coast  of  all  the 
United  States  was  then  called.  And  at  last  it  was 
determined  to  seek  a  charter  from  the  Virginia 
Company,  to  which  King  James  had  given  the  coast 
from  Cape  Fear,  in  North  Carolina,  to  Long  Island 
Sound.*  But  it  was  wisely  agreed  that  they  should 
make  a  separate  settlement,  and  not  ally  themselves 
with  the  colony  known  to  us  as  the  Colony  of 
Virginia. 

In  the  first  negotiation,  as  early  as  1617,  John 
Carver  and  Robert  Gush  man  were  their  agents. 
They  submitted  seven  articles  to  the  Council  of 
Virginia.  These  articles  show  the  religious  and 
social  views  of  the  religious  communion  to  which 
they  belonged,  in  the  way  best  calculated  to  win  the 
confidence  of  people  not  bigots  in  the  English 
Church.  They  express  their  willingness  to  hold 
communion  with  the  members  of  that  church,  and 
their  concurrence  in  its  theological  creed.  The 
company  to  which  they  applied  received  them 
cordially,  and  on  the  fifteenth  of  December,  the 
emigrants  transmitted  to  them  their  formal  request. 
They  went  further,  however,  and  asked  the  king  for 
liberty  of  religion  in  America,  to  be  confirmed  under 
the  great  seal.  But  this  could  not  be  given  by  such 
a  fool  as  then  reigned  in  England.  The  best  that 
could  be  gained  was  an  informal  promise  of  probable 
neglect. 

*  The  precise  limit  of  the  charter  to  the  London  Adventurers  is  from  thirty-four 
to  thirty-eight  degrees  of  North  Latitude,  with  the  right  to  settle  as  far  north  as  the 
forty-first. 


32  THE  PILGRIM  FATHERS. 

The  Virginia  Company  itself  was  rent  by  internal 
dissensions.  And  difficulties  in  negotiation,  both 
with  the  company  and  the  crown,  delayed  with  long 
delay  the  wishes  of  the  eager  emigrants  in  Holland. 
It  was  not  until  1619  that  a  patent  was  granted 
for  their  use  to  one  John  Wincob,  —  a  "  religious^ 
person,"  of  whom  nothing  else  is  known,  but  that 
he  was  of  the  household  of  the  Countess  of  Lincoln. 
As  it  proved,  the  patent  was  never  of  any  value  to 
them.  It  is  now  lost,  and  its  precise  terms  are  not 
known. 

And  now  the  extreme  poverty  of  the  company 
appears.  For  they  cannot  go  forward  without  a 
contract  with  men  of  money,  to  whom  these  poor 
people  have  to  sell  themselves,  that  they  may  obtain 
a  passage  even  to  their  place  of  exile.  To  make  a 
final  agreement  in  England,  they  dispatched  Robert 
Cushman  and  Thomas  Weston,  two  of  their  number, 
to  England.  The  difficulty  of  communication  be- 
tween these  two  men  and  their  principals  made  no 
little  trouble.  The  relations  between  the  ssttlers 
and  the  capitalists  made  more,  and  the  contract 
determined  on  proved  a  very  hard  one  for  the  set- 
tlers. But  Cushman  always  held  —  and  with  a  cer- 
tain dry  humor  he  showed  —  that  he  and  Weston 
did  the  best  that  could  be  done.  To  conciliate  the 
English  adventurers,  he  was  forced  to  make  large 
concessions  to  them  on  various  points,  where  his 
employers  blamed  him  severely.  In  particular,  he 
employed  one  Christopher  Martin,  who,  with  his 
family,  was  to  join  them,  to  make  the  purchases  of 


THE  PILGRIM  FATHERS.  33 

stores.  Martin  was  thought  to  have  abused  his 
trust.  Perhaps  he  did  so.  But  as  the  poor  man  and 
all  his  family  died  afterward  in  the  horrors  of 
the  first  winter  in  America,  he  must  be  counted  as 
one  of  the  martyrs,  and  we  must  remember  that  he 
left  no  one  to  tell  his  side  of  the  story. 

About  seventy  merchants  and  other  gentlemen  in 
England,  with  one  gentle-woman,  as  will  be  seen, 
living  mostly  near  London,  "aiming  to  do  good 
and  to  plant  religion,''  subscribed  at  least  ten 
pounds  each  to  the  adventure.  Many  subscribed 
more.  To  these  the  emigrants  joined  themselves. 
Whoever  went  in  person,  over  the  age  of  sixteen 
years,  was  counted  as  if  he  had  subscribed  ten 
pounds.  If  he  chose  to  subscribe  ten  pounds  more 
in  provisions  or  money,  he  was  counted  as  having  a 
double  share  of  stock,  —  and  in  that  proportion  for 
each  ten  pounds. 

All  these  adventurers,  those  who  stayed  at  home 
and  those  who  emigrated,  became  partners  in  trade, 
work,  fishing,  or  any  other  enterprise.  The  emi- 
grants were  to  be  fed  from  the  common  stock.  At 
the  end  of  seven  years  there  was  to  be  a  division, 
and  each  partner  was  to  receive  a  dividend. 

The  particular  point  where  the  emigrants  were 
most  displeased,  was  the  failure  of  the  agreement  to 
give  them  any  time  to  work  for  themselves.  They 
also  wished  and  expected,  each  man  to  own  his 
house  and  home  lot  at  the  end  of  the  seven  years. 
But  when  they  arrived  in  England,  their  own 
agents  had  gone  so  far  under  the  agreement,  that 


34  THE  PILGRIM  FATHERS. 

it  was  impossible  to  reconsider  or  re-adjust  any 
details. 

Carver,  Winslow,  Bradford,  Brewster,  and  Stand- 
ish  —  not  to  name  other  leaders  —  were  determined 
to  go.  In  face  of  all  discouragements  and  dis- 
appointments, they  held  the  others  up  to  the  plan. 
This  has  proved  well  for  them,  well  for  New  Eng- 
land, and  well,  indeed,  for  the  world. 

They  bought  the  Speedwell,  a  ship  of  sixty  tons, 
for  the  expedition,  and  she  first  went  to  Holland  to 
bring  the  Leyden  contingent  to  the  southern  ports 
of  England ;  there  they  were  to  meet  her  consort, 
the  Mayflower,  which  had  been  chartered  in  Eng- 
land. Those  who  stayed  in  Leyden,  who  were  the 
majority,  feasted  the  emigrants  at  the  pastor's 
house.  They  refreshed  themselves  with  singing  of 
psalms,  —  and  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  many  of 
the  congregation  were  very  expert  in  music.  The 
Speedwell  lay  at  Delft  Haven,  which  is  about  four- 
teen miles  from  Leyden.  The  Leyden  party  accom- 
panied the  emigrants  to  that  port  and  feasted  them 
again.  "The  night  was  spent  with  little  sleep  by 
the  most,  but  with  friendly  entertainment  and  Chris- 
tian discourse,  and  other  real  expressions  of  true 
Christian  love."  The  next  day  the  wind  was  fair. 
"The  tide  which  stays  for  no  man,  calling  them 
away  that  were  thus  loath  to  depart,  their  reverend 
pastor  falling  down  on  his  knees,  and  they  all  with 
him,  with  watery  cheeks  commended  them  with 
most  fervent  prayer  to  the  Lord  and  his  blessing."* 

*This  is  the  moment  selected  by  Weir,  for  his  admirable  picture  in  the  Rotunda  at 
Washington. 


THE  PILGRIM  FATHERS.  35 

And  thus  the  emigrants  parted  from  friends,  many 
of  whom  they  never  saw  again.  This  was  about 
the  twenty-second  of  July,  1620. 

It  is  hard  to  estimate  the  pecuniary  investment 
which  these  poor  people  made  in  providing  for  their 
voyage.  It  is  clear  enough  from  the  hard  bargain 
which  they  were  forced  to  accept,  that  they  had 
but  little  ready  money  to  contribute.  The  English 
adventurers,  as  they  were  called,  who  stayed  at 
home,  were  merchants  and  others,  of  the  Puritan 
line  of  thinking,  who  already  had  their  eyes  on 
America  as  a  possible  place  of  refuge,  if  the  liberty 
of  the  Gospel  were  too  much  hindered  at  home. 
They  expected  some  pecuniary  return.  But  they 
did  not  make  themselves  into  a  corporation ;  they 
did  not  invest  very  large  sums.*  Most  of  them 
wanted  to  do  good  and  to  advance  religion.  Some 
of  them  were  soon  discouraged  and  withdrew.  But 
it  is  quite  clear  that  the  largest  part  of  the  ready 
money  was  furnished  by  those  who  stayed  at  home. 
On  paper  there  were  sixty  or  seventy  of  them,  who 
paid,  at  least,  ten  pounds  each.  Some  of  these,  how- 
ever, early  withdrew  from  their  engagements.  And 
when,  in  1627,  the  contract  was  closed,  there  were 
forty-two  left,  after  death  and  dissatisfaction  had 
reduced  their  number.  They  received  from  the 
colonists  eighteen  hundred  pounds  in  final  payment 
of  their  investments.  By  the  account  which  the 
instrument  of  agreement  itself  requires,  the  colonists 

*  Sir  George  Farrar  and  his  brother  withdrew  five  hundred  pounds  after  they  had  con- 
versed with  Weston  on  the  wishes  of  the  Leyden  men. 


36  THE  PILGRIM  FATHERS. 

represented  certain  shares  in  the  company,  without 
any  estimate  of  their  pecuniary  contributions.  Chris- 
topher Martin,  and  some  others  of  the  English  adven- 
turers, joined  the  emigrants  from  Holland  on  the 
Mayflower. 

The  position,  then,  as  I  have  said,  was  the  same 
which  our  own  time  often  sees,  when  a  person  or  a 
company  in  an  Eastern  city  of  the  United  States 
sends  out  one  or  more  emigrants  to  California,  to 
Oregon,  to  Montana  or  Texas,  providing  the  capital 
lor  the  adventure.  In  this  case  it  was  agreed  that, 
in  the  division  of  profits  at  the  end  of  the  seven 
years,  each  emigrant  should  share  as  if  he  had  con- 
tributed ten  pounds  in  the  beginning,  and,  in  the 
meantime,  should  receive  his  clothing,  his  food,  and 
his  home.  Such  in  substance  was  the  agreement. 
The  emigrants  lived  up  to  it  fairly,  and,  as  has  been 
said,  at  the  end  of  seven  years  paid  the  stayers  at 
home  eighteen  hundred  pounds,  in  discharge  of  their 
share  in  the  joint  enterprise. 

Carver,  Winslow,  Bradford,  Brewster,  Standish, 
Fuller,  and  Allerton  were  the  persons  of  largest 
means  in  the  Leyden  group  of  the  emigrants.  It 
seems  as  if  their  quota  of  subscription  to  the  common 
stock  were  paid  in  "  provisions  "  for  the  voyage  and 
the  colony,  and  that  by  provisions  is  meant  such 
articles  of  food  as  could  be  best  bought  in  Holland. 
When  the  little  vessel  arrived  in  England,  the  colo- 
nists met,  to  their  dismay,  the  old  story  that  there 
was  not  money  enough  yet,  and  they  were  obliged 
to  sell  from  their  stores  sixty  pounds'  worth  of  butter 


TEE  PILGRIM  FATHERS.  37 

which  had  been  provided  for  the  voyage.  C ashman 
had  already  cut  the  emigrants  short  of  beer,  by  tak- 
ing that  article  from  the  list  of  necessary  stores. 
And  to  after  times,  it  is  an  interesting  thing  that 
the  first  settlers,  in  spite  of  themselves,  were 
made  teetotalers  for  a  year  by  this  enforced 
abstinence.* 

By  such  means  the  addition  of  one  hundred  pounds 
for  things  absolutely  necessary  was  made  as  hastily 
as  possible  in  England.  The  season  was  advancing, 
and,  indeed,  it  was  to  the  loss  of  time  here  and  now, 
that  the  subsequent  hardships  of  the  first  winter  in 
America  were  due. 

Writing  on  the  twentieth  of  June,  Cushman,  one 
of  the  London  agents  of  the  Leyden  party,  estimated 
fifteen  hundred  pounds  or  sixteen  hundred  pounds  as 
the  amount  needed  for  the  expedition.  Of  this 
he  could  only  find  that  twelve  hundred  pounds 
had  been  paid  in  by  all  parties,  besides  some  cloth, 
stockings,  and  shoes.  There  was  so  little  money 
among  the  Holland  adventurers  that  Cushman  had 
to  send  them  five  hundred  pounds,  "  though  we  may 
go  scratch  for  it,"  which  he  did.  With  such  help  the 
Holland  party  had  bought  their  provisions  for  the 
voyage  and  embarked.  They  had  left  for  themselves 
"  scarcely  any  butter,  no  oil,  not  a  soul  to  mend  a 

*  As  late  as  1824  this  was  counted  as  a  hardship.  In  his  anniversary  address  of  that 
year,  Edward  Everett,  in  recounting  the  hardships  of  the  first  winter,  says,  "  Depending 
on  the  charity  of  the  shipmaster  for  a  draught  of  beer  on  board,  drinking  nothing  but 
water  on  shore."  In  1628,  Bradford  counts  it  as  a  terrible  extravagance  that  Morton 
and  his  ribald  crew  of  perhaps  fifty  people  drank  ten  pounds'  worth  of  wine  and  liquor 
at  one  night  of  debauch.  And  so  it  was,  if  ten  pounds  then  represent  eighty  pounds  or 
four  hundred  dollars  now. 


38  THE  PILGRIM  FATHERS. 

shoe,  nor  every  man  a  sword  to  his  side,  and  were 
wanting-  many  muskets,  'much  armor,  etc." 

They  had  not  sacrificed  so  much  to  be  unwilling 
now  to  make  the  final  sacrifices  which  have  been 
described.  And,  in  a  few  days  more,  both  vessels 
had  taken  on  board  the  English  contingents  and 
started  together.  Some  time  had  been  lost,  however, 
in  repairs  upon  the  Speedwell,  the  smaller  vessel  of 
the  two,  and  the  one  which  the  colonists  and  ad- 
venturers owned.  In  the  little  voyage  from  Holland, 
she  had  proved  to  be  in  poor  condition. 

But  the  repairs  thus  suggested  did  not  prove  suffi- 
cient. They  had  not  sailed  a  hundred  miles  west- 
ward, when  she  proved  so  unseaworthy  that  her 
captain  reported  to  the  larger  ship  that  he  would  not 
go  on.  Both  vessels  were  obliged  to  return,  this 
time  to  Plymouth  in  Devon.  Here,  on  consultation, 
the  Speedwell  was  left,  and,  in  fact,  she  never 
made  the  voyage.  The  Mayflower  took  on  board 
some  of  the  passengers,  —  left,  perhaps,  some  of 
those  who  had  embarked  in  her,  - —  and,  with  one 
hundred  and  one  emigrants,  sailed  again,  on  the 
sixth  of  September,  1620. 

Nothing  is  said  in  the  memoirs  of  the  passengers  as 
to  the  ignorance,  —  one  might  well  say  the  folly, — 
of  starting  upon  such  an  adventure  so  late  in  the 
season.  They  had  been  in  communication  with  the 
Dutch,  with  reference  to  planting  near  Manhattan, 
which  we  call  New  York.  They  knew,  and  had 
dealt  with,  fishermen  who  knew  the  coast  of  New 
England  and  its  climate  perfectly  well.  How  they 


THE  PILGRIM  FATHERS.  39 

dared  to  sail  as  late  as  September,  for  a  settlement 
with  women  and  little  children,  nowhere  appears. 
True,  they  did  not  intend  to  settle  as  far  north  as 
they  did.  But  they  did  not  expect  to  go  as  far 
south  as  the  Chesapeake.  Even  if  they  had,  the 
experience  of  all  the  settlements,  and  indeed  of  the 
simplest  common  sense,  would  have  taught  them 
that  they  should  arrive  at  their  new  home  in  the 
spring. 

They  were  not  men,  however,  who  had  many  of 
the  privileges  of  choosers.  As  it  proved,  — alas  for 
them !  —  the  voyage  was  a  long  one.  The  May- 
flower does  not  seem  to  have  followed  the  southern 
passage,  much  in  vogue  till  times  then  recent.  But, 
in  a  direct  course,  she  had  rough  weather,  and  was 
sixty-four  days  on  the  sea  before  she  made  Cape  Cod. 
This  landfall  was  somewhat  north  of  what  the 
captain  intended  and  his  passengers  wished  for. 
Indeed,  Captain  Thomas  Jones,  the  master  of  the 
Mayflower,  was  afterward  accused  of  treachery  in 
this  matter.  But  it  is  clear  that  at  the  time  no  such 
suspicion  was  entertained. 

They  came  into  Cape  Cod  harbor,  where  the  town 
of  Provincetown  now  stands,  on  the  eleventh  of 
November,  Old  Style.  It  was  in  this  harbor  that 
every  man  of  the  party  subscribed  the  celebrated 
compact  by  which  they  agreed  to  maintain  them- 
selves in  civil  order,  as  a  State  or  Commonwealth, 
under  such  laws  as  the  majority  might  enact.  To 
the  place  of  Governor  the}7  confirmed  John  Carver, 
one  of  the  Leyden  party,  who  had  been  named  to 


40  THE  PILGRIM  FATHERS. 

some  such  authority  before,  —  probably  in  some 
meeting  of  the  Church. 

The  enthusiasts  who  suppose  that  government  rests 
on  what  Rousseau  calls  the  "  Social  Compact,"  find 
in  this  act  a  fine  instance  in  practice,  in  which  such 
a  compact  is  made.  A  very  noble  instance  it  is.*  It 
is  to  be  remembered  that  the  great  majority  of  those 
who  joined  in  it  were  already  united  to  each  other  in 
a  church  covenant,  in  which  they  were  bound  to 
each  other  to  care  for  the  common  welfare.  The 
compact  of  the  cabin  of  the  Mayflower  added  to 
them,  for  the  purpose  of  civil  government,  such  ser- 
vants and  others  who  had  joined  their  colony  in 
England,  as  were  not  already  members  of  the  church 
formed  in  Leyden. 

Some  of  the  more  vigorous  of  the  company  started 
to  explore  the  coast,  in  a  shallop  which  had  been 
brought  on  deck  for  such  purposes.  Sometimes  sail- 
ing, sometimes  landing  a  part  of  the  party  to  march 
along  the  shore,  they  examined  —  in  two  voyages  — 
the  southern  shore  of  Massachusetts  Bay,  and  came 
as  far  as  Plymouth  Harbor.  On  the  eleventh  of 

*  "  In  the  name  of  God,  Amen.  We,  whose  names  are  underwritten,  the  loyal 
subjects  of  our  dread  sovereign  lord  King  James,  by  the  grace  of  God,  of  Great  Britain, 
France,  and  Ireland,  King,  Defender  of  the  Faith,  etc.,  having  undertaken,  for  the  glory 
of  God,  and  advancement  of  the  Christian  faith,  and  honor  of  our  king  and  country,  a 
voyage  to  plant  the  first  colony  in  the  northern  parts  of  Virginia,  do,  by  these  presents, 
solemnly  and  mutually,  in  the  presence  of  God  and  of  one  another,  covenant  and  combine 
ourselves  together  into  a  civil  body  politic,  for  our  better  ordering  and  preservation, 
and  furthering  of  the  ends  aforesaid ;  and  by  virtue  hereof  to  enact,  constitute,  and 
frame  such  just  and  equal  laws,  ordinances,  constitutions,  and  offices,  from  time  to  time 
as  shall  be  thought  most  meet  and  convenient  for  the  general  good  of  the  colony ;  unto 
which  we  promise  all  due  submission  and  obedience.  In  witness  whereof  we  have  here- 
urider  subscribed  our  names,  at  Cape  Cod,  the  eleventh  of  November,  in  the  year  of  the 
reign  of  our  sovereign  lord  King  James,  of  England,  France,  and  Ireland  the  eighteenth 
and  of  Scotland  the  fifty-fourth,  Anno  Domini,  1620." 


THE  PIL  GRIM  FA  THEES.  41 

December,  Old  Style,  they  landed.  Tradition  never 
wavered  in  its  statement  that  they  landed  on  the 
rock  now  marked  by  a  little  temple  as  a  monument. 
In  the  change  of  style  made  in  the  next  century, 
this  day  is  now  represented  by  the  twenty-first  of 
December.* 

They  returned  at  once  to  Cape  Cod  Harbor  and 
made  their  report.  It  was  accepted  by  the  govern- 
ing authorities,  and  the  Mayflower  was  at  once  taken 
across  to  the  flow-found  harbor.  Then  began  the 
work  of  laying  out  the  new  town,  and  building  the 
necessary  houses.  With  a  certain  pride  in  defying 
what  they  thought  the  superstitions  of  England, 
they  began  on  Christinas  day.  "The  twenty-fifth 
day,  they  began  to  erect  the  first  house  for  common 
use."  "  We  went  on  shore,  some  to  fell  timber,  some 
to  saw,  some  to  drive,  and  some  to  carry.  So  no 
man  rested  on  that  day."  These  are  the  char- 
acteristic statements  of  Bradford  and  Winslow.  And 
to  mark  the  cheer  of  the  day,  Winslow  adds,  "  We 
began  to  drink  water  aboard.  But  at  night  the 
master  [of  the  Mayflower]  caused  us  to  have  some 
beer."  Thus  was  it  that  the  foundation  of  a  free 
empire  was  laid  —  as  it  should  have  been  —  on 
Christmas  day. 

The  common  house  thus  begun  was  twenty  feet 
square.  Five  separate  houses  for  residences  were 
begun  at  the  same  time.  It  would  seem  as  if  they 
could  hardly  have  been  smaller.  As  these  houses 

*  An  error  of  calculation  fixed  the  twenty-second  as  the  anniversary  for  nearly  a  cen- 
tury. The  Pilgrim  Society  at  Plymouth  has  determined,  however,  that  the  twenty-first 
is  the  proper  day,  and  this  is  undoubtedly  right. 


42  THE  PILGRIM  FATHERS. 

were  finished,  more  and  more  of  the  company  left 
the  vessel  at  night,  and  resided  on  shore.  But  the 
hardships  of  their  life,  the  lack  of  proper  food,  scurvy 
and  other  diseases  caused  by  this  hardship,  began,  even 
in  January,  to  diminish  their  number.  One  hundred 
and  one  emigrants  had  sailed  from  England.  Mrs. 
Bradford  was  drowned  by  an  accident  in  Cape  Cod 
harbor  while  her  husband  was  absent  on  the  first 
survey  of  the  coast ;  one  man  died  on  the  passage ; 
and  a  child,  Peregrine  White,  was  born  while  they 
lay  in  the  harbor.  Of  this  number,  Bradford  tells  us 
that  the  greater  part  died  in  "  the  general  mortality  " 
of  the  beginning,  and  most  of  them  in  two  or  three 
months'  time.  His  diary  gives  six  deaths  in  Decem- 
ber, eight  in  January,  seventeen  in  February,  and 
thirteen  in  March.  Before  the  end  of  a  year  the 
number  of  deaths  had  come  to  fifty.*  "The  fifty 
who  died,  died  not  because  the  country  was  un- 
healthful,  but  because  their  bodies  were  corrupted 
with  sea  diet  which  was  naught  —  their  beef  and 
pork  being  tainted,  their  butter  and  cheese  corrupted, 
the  fish  rotten,  and  the  voyage  long  by  reason  of 
cross  winds : — so  that  winter  approaching  before 
they  could  .get  warm  houses,  and  the  searching 
sharpness  of  the  climate  creeping  in  at  the  crannies 
of  their  bodies,  caused  death  and  sickness."  t 

And  so,  in  sickness  and  in  tears,  in  distress  and 
death,  but  with  constancy,  firmness,  devotion  and  un- 
wavering faith  were  laid  the  foundations  of  the  State. 

*  Of  the  fifty  who  survived,  Bradford  knew  one  hundred  and  sixty  descendants  in  1650. 
t  Wood's  New  England  Prospert,  Chap.  II. 


THE  PILGRIM  FATHERS.  43 


THE   THREE   ANNIVERSARIES. 

Short  is  the  clay,  and  night  is  long, 

But  he  who  waits  for  day, 

In  darkness  sits  not  quite  so  long, 

And  earlier  hails  the  twilight  gray, 

A  little  earlier  greets  the  day 

That  drives  the  mists  of  night  away. 

So  was  our  land  forlorn  and  drear, 
When  to  the  rock-bound  shore 
A  pilgrim  band  Christ-led,  drew  near, — 
They  promise  it  a  new  born  year, 
Twilight  —  which  shows  that  even  here 
The  Sun  of  Mercy  shall  appear  :  —  the  land  be 
dark  no  more. 

So  was  the  world  —  dark,  cold  and  wild 

When  on  a  Christmas  morn 

A  baby  on  his  mother  smiled 

The'  dawning  comes —  the  blessed  child 

The  Sun  of  Life  is  born. 

The  lengthening  days  shall  longer  grow,  — 

Till  summer  rules  the  land. 

From  Pilgrim  rills,  full  rivers  flow  — 

Roll  bolder  and  more  grand. 

So,  Father,  grant  that  every  year, 

The  Sun  of  Righteousness  more  clear, 

To  our  awaiting  hearts  appear ;  — 

And  from  his  glorious  East  arise 

The  noon-day  monarch  of  the  skies, 

Till  darkness  from  the  nations  flies, 

Till  all  know  Him  as  they  are  known; 

And  all  the  earth  be  all  His  own. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE    PILGKIMS    AT    PLYMOUTH.       1620  -  1630. 

E  terrors  of  the  first  winter  have  been  told,  in 
J-  poetry  and  in  oratory,  so  that  the  world  knows 
them.  Of  one  hundred  who  were  living  the  day  the 
compact  was  signed  in  the  Mayflower,  only  fifty 
were  living  on  the  first  of  April.  The  survivors  did 
not  dare  mark  the  graves,  for  fear  the  savages,  of 
whom  they  still  had  fears,  should  know  how  their 
number  was  weakened.  But  after  this  the  colonists 
enjoyed  good  health.  One  and  another  voyage 
brought  them  almost  all  of  the  Leyden  party  who  had 
stayed  behind,  but  Robinson,  their  pastor  and  leader, 
"  died  without  the  sight."  Of  the  first  winter,  the 
history  is  mostly  of  sickness  and  death,  but  in  part 
of  the  building  of  the  village.  It  consisted  of  but 
seven  houses,  with  the  common  house.  It  has  been 
observed  that,  with  a  stern  determination  that  they 
would  observe  no  popish  holidays,  they  seem  to  have 
waited  a  day  before  they  went  to  work.  u  The 
twenty-fifth  day  of  December  we  went  on  shore, 
some  to  fell  timber,  some  to  saw,  some  to  rive,  and 
some  to  carry.  So  no  man  rested  all  that  day." 
It  was  by  such  determination  to  violate  the  fond 
tradition  of  the  old  church,  that  these  men,  who 

44 


THE  PILGRIMS  AT  PLYMOUTH.  45 

"  builded  wiser  than  they  knew,"  established  an  em- 
pire on  the  birthday  of  Christendom.  We  have, 
fortunately,  Bradford's  history,  which  is  in  these 
days  a  diary,  of  the  winter.  That  the  houses  were 
not  elaborate  is  shown  when  we  say  that,  between 
the  twenty-fifth  of  December  and  the  ninth  of  Jan- 
uary, the  common  house,  which  was  the  first,  was 
nearly  finished.  In  four  days  and  a  half  more  it 
was  thatched.  "  Frost  and  foul  weather  hindered 
us  much  this  time  of  the  year.  Seldom  could  we 
work  half  the  week.  But,  alas,  on  the  fourteenth  it 
took  fire ;  the  house  was  as  full  of  beds  as  they 
could  lie  one  by  another,  but,  blessed  be  God,  there 
was  no  harm  done."  The  thatch  of  the  roof  was 
burned  up,  "  but  the  roof  stood,  and  little  hurt."  On 
the  twenty-first  of  January  they  "  kept  their  first 
meeting  on  land."  On  the  ninth  of  February,  the 
little  house  for  sick  people,  which  was  another  com- 
mon house,  was  again  set  on  fire.  Indications  of 
Indians  appeared  from  time  to  time  through  these 
months,  and  on  the  seventeenth  of  February  two  sav- 
ages made  signs  to  the  settlers  to  come  to  them,  which 
signs  they  returned.  These  evidences  that  they  were 
known  by  the  natives  caused  them  to  "  plant  their 
great  ordnances."  It  was  not  till  the  sixteenth  of 
March  that  Samoset,  well  remembered  in  our  tra- 
ditions, came  straight  to  the  rendezvous  and  bade 
them  welcome.  He  had  learned  some  broken  Eng- 
lish from  the  Englishmen  who  came  to  fish,  and  knew 
by  name  the  most  of  their  captains.  He  told  them 
that  all  the  inhabitants  of  Petuxet,  which  was  the 


46  THE  PILGRIMS  AT  PLYMOUTH. 

native  name  of  Plymouth,  had  died  of  an  extraordi- 
nary plague.  They  welcomed  him  cordially,  dismissed 
him  with  kindness,  and  gave  him  a  knife,  a  bracelet, 
and  a  ring.  The  next  day  he  returned  with  five  other 
"  tall  proper  men."  Both  parties  treated  one  another 
well,  and  "  with  many  thanks  given  us  they  departed, 
with  promises  they  would  come  again."  On  the 
twenty-first  of  March  they  had  a  meeting  to  conclude 
laws  and  orders  for  themselves.  This  had  been 
attempted  before,  but  twice  broken  up  by  the  "savages 
coming.  So  it  happened  a  third  time,  and  Captain 
Standish,  with  another,  with  their  muskets,  went 
over,  afraid  of  an  attack,  but  all  these  fears  were 
groundless.  On  the  twenty-third  they  attempted 
their  public  business  again,  but  Samoset  with  Squanto 
appeared  once  more,  and  brought  with  them  Massa- 
soit  with  sixty  men.  Quite  a  formal  treaty  was 
made,  that  neither  party  should  injure  the  other, 
and  that  no  visits  should  be  made  with  arms.  If 
this  treaty  was  observed,  King  James  "  would  esteem 
him  as  his  friend  and  ally." 

On  the  fifth  of  April  they  sent  back  the  May- 
flower with  Captain  Jones,  and  she  arrived  in  Eng- 
land after  a  passage  of  a  month.  Not  one  of  the 
settlers  abandoned  the  enterprise  to  return  with  her. 
But  the  winter  had  been  severe  for  them.  Carver, 
the  governor,  had  died;  his  wife  had  died,  Winslow's 
and  Bradford's  wives  had  died.  Bradford's  entry  is, 
"Of  a  hundred  persons,  scarce  fifty  remain.  The 
living  scarce  able  to  bury  the  dead,  the  well  not 
sufficient  to  tend  the  sick,  there  being,  in  their  time 


THE  PILGRIMS  AT  PLYMOUTH.  47 

of  greatest  distress,  but  six  or  seven,  who  spared  no 
pains  to  help  them.  Two  of  the  seven  were  Mr. 
Brewster,  their  elder,  and  Mr.  Standish,  their  cap- 
tain. The  like  disease  fell  also  among  the  sailors, 
so  as  almost  half  their  company  died  before  they 
sailed." 

There  is  no  question  but  that  the  rock  still  known 
as  Plymouth  Rock,  and  now  marked  by  a  little 
shrine  which  the  piety  of  subsequent  times  has  built 
over  it,  is  the  rock  on  which  the  explorers  first 
landed.  Probably  it  was  the  landing-place  of  the 
larger  party  when  the  Mayflower  crossed  to  Prov- 
incetown,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  challenge  the 
tradition  that  Mary  Chilton  was  first  to  step  upon 
it.  In  the  excitement  which  preceded  the  American 
Revolution,  one  hundred  and  forty-four  years  after, 
the  Sons  of  Liberty  undertook  to  remove  the  rock 
from  the  beach,  where  the  sea  flowed  up  to  it,  and 
to  carry  it  into  the  middle  of  the  town.  The  rock, 
which  was  the  visible  sign  of  the  landing  of  the 
English  in  America,  broke  in  two,  and  only  the 
upper  part  was  carried  to  the  village.  The  patri- 
otism and  piety  of  the  time  saw  in  the  parting  an 
omen  of  the  future. 

After  these  months  of  suffering,  there  followed 
years,  not  of  wealth,  but  more  and  more  of  personal 
comfort.  They  were  able  in  the  autumn  to  celebrate 
the  first  American  Thanksgiving  with  good  heart. 
The  fortunate  discovery,  within  this  generation,  of 
Bradford's  history  makes  it  certain  that  wild  turkeys 
crowned  their  Thanksgiving  feast.  The  colonists 


48  THE  PILGRIMS  AT  PLYMOUTH. 

immediately  opened  relations  with  the  fishermen  on 
the  coast  of  Maine.  In  one  way  or  another  they 
worked,  and  worked  well,  to  discharge  the  debt 
which  they  felt  that  they  owed  to  the  gentlemen 
adventurers,  and  to  Eliza  Knight,  the  brave  woman 
who  was  "anxious  to  do  good."  In  1627,  by  differ- 
ent loads  of  fish,  of  beaver,  of  sassafras,  and  the  rest, 
seventeen  hundred  pounds  of  this  indebtedness  was 
wiped  out,  and  this  sum  seems  to  have  been  enough 
to  liquidate  the  amount  in  full,  with  even  a  handsome 
profit  to  the  subscribers. 

After  a  few  years  they  opened  communications  with 
Buzzard's  Bay  and  Narragansett  Bay,  and  had  some 
diplomatic  passages  with  the  Dutch  in  the  harbor  of 
New  York.  They  found  they  were  outside  the  lines 
of  the  patent  which  they  had,  but  their  communi- 
cations with  England  were  not  unfriendly,  and  in 
point  of  fact  their  right  to  exist  in  the  desert  was 
never  disturbed  by  any  government.  Under  the 
government  which  they  made  for  themselves,  the 
Old  Colony  existed  in  prosperity  until,  in  the  reign 
of  William  the  Third,  they  were  united  to  the  Bay 
State.  Bat  the  name  of  the  Old  Colony  is  still 
fondly  cherished  as  the  name  of  the  three  south- 
western counties  of  Massachusetts.  In  no  part  of 
the  world  has  there  been  more  opportunity  for  "  life, 
liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness."  In  no  part 
of  the  world  has  thought  been  more  free.  In  no 
part  of  the  world  has  ma.n's  opportunity  for  promo- 
tion been  more  open.  In  no  part  of  the  world  has 
there  been  less  of  crime  and  less  of  poverty.  The 


THE  PILGRIMS  AT  PLYMOUTH,  49 

prophecy  of  John  Robinson  has  been  more  than  ful- 
filled, and  in  a  higher  sense  than  the  mere  verbal 
expression  with  which  he  would  have  been  satisfied. 
It  has  been  true  that  "  more  light  and  more  truth 
have  come  out  of  God's  holy  word." 


THE   FINDING  OF   THE   FIRST   MAYFLOWER. 
BY  ARTHUR  HALE. 
Plymouth,  1621. 
i. 

THE  gray  mists  on  the  hillside  fall, 
The  gray  gulls  o'er  the  harbour  call. 
With  silent  tread  they  wander  down 
Through  last  year's  leaves  and  grasses  brown. 
Said  he,  "  The  months  go  by,  this  year, 

And  all  is  still  and  dead. 
Is  it,  then,  always  winter  here?  " 

"The  spring  will  come,"  she  said. 

n. 

An  east  wind  cuts  the  mist  in  twain,  — 
There  is  the  straight  sea  line  again. 
She  draws  her  mantle  close,  and  he, 
Turning  his  back  upon  the  sea, 
Speaks  :  "  Lord,  thy  servant  here  behold! 

My  sins  upon  my  head ; 
But  why,  Lord,  slay  us  by  thy  cold  ?" 

"  The  spring  will  come,"  she  said. 

in. 

She  droops  her  head,  and  at  her  feet 
There  is  a  flower,  white  and  sweet. 
They  brush  the  leaves  aside,  and  there 
Its  pink  and  white  are  everywhere. 
A  ray  of  sun  —  and  all  the  slope 

Laughs  with  its  white  and  red. 
"  It  is  the  Mayflower  of  our  hope; 

The  spring  is  come,"  she  said. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

1 

THE     EMIGRATION    TO     THE     BAY.       1630-1631. 

ALL  this  while  the  condition  of  things  in  England 
was  becoming  more  and  more  critical.  The  stu- 
pidity and  bigotry  of  James  the  First  had  precipitated 
a  breach  in  the  English  Church ;  and,  by  the  time  he 
had  died,  the  party  which  was  eventually  to  drive  his 
son  from  the  throne  and  behead  him,  knew  its  own 
strength.  Through  the  same  generation,  men  had 
taken  more  and  more  interest  in  the  English  posses- 
sions in  America.  The  government  of  England  had 
determined  that  it  had  claims  there,  and  the  colony 
of  Virginia  had  been  the  visible  establishment  of 
those  claims.  The  settlement  made  by  the  Pilgrim 
Fathers  in  Plymouth,  and  the  little  fishing  stations 
at  different  points  up  and  down  the  New  England 
coast,  were  bringing  the  name  of  America  —  or  Vir- 
ginia, as  it  was  often  called  —  more  and  more  dis- 
tinctly to  the  knowledge  of  Englishmen. 

It  is  not  to  be  forgotten  that  although,  when  the 
century  began,  there  was  no  family  of  English  blood 
established  on  the  whole  coast  of  America,  there 
were  many  separate  adventurers  who  knew  the 
coast ;  in  the  island  of  Newfoundland  there  had  been, 
for  fifty  years,  a  very  considerable  establishment  of 

50 


THE  EMIGRATION  TO    THE  BAY.          51 

fishermen.  All  the  counties  of  England  which  had 
to  do  with  fishing  knew  more  or  less  of  the  immense 
resources  which  the  Banks  of  Newfoundland  offered 
for  their  industry^  It  was  in  Dorchester,  in  the 
southwest  of  England,  that  this  industry  had  its 
principal  center.  In  Dorchester,  the  minister  of  the 
parish  church  was  John  White,  the  man  now  known 
as  the  founder  of  Massachusetts.  He  was  a  conscien- 
tious Puritan  minister  ;  he  was  a  man  of  broad  views 
in  Church  and  State ;  he  was  well  acquainted  with 
the  industries  of  the  city  of  which  he  was  the  spirit- 
ual head  ;  and  he  early  conceived  the  idea  that  on  the 
coast  of  America  could  be  founded  a  colony  where 
could  be  made  sure  the  rights  of  worship  which 
were  denied  by  Laud  and  the  bigots  of  the  English 
Church  at  home.  Among  the  adventurers  in  Eng- 
land who  subscribed  funds  for  the  Pilgrim  colony, 
appears  the  name  of  John  White.  It  is  possible 
that  this  is  the  Rev.  John  White  of  Dorchester, 
but  it  is  more  probable  that  it  is  Counselor  John 
White,  who  was  the  legal  adviser  of  the  Massachu- 
setts Company  in  England. 

In  London,  the  Puritan  party  had  great  strength, 
as  the  history  of  the  outbreak  with  Charles  showed 
at  once.  The  merchants  of  the  city  were  much 
more  disposed  to  maintain  the  freedom  claimed  by 
the  Puritans  than  they  were  to  succumb  to  the 
requisitions  of  bishops  and  more  bigoted  clergy. 
The  list  which  we  have  of  the  men  who  wished  to 
*'  do  good,"  and  in  that  wish  assisted  the  Pilgrim 
colony,  is  largely  a  list  of  such  merchants.  Among 


52  THE  EMIGRA  TION  TO    THE  BA  Y. 

them  is  the  name  of  Eliza  Knight,  and  it  is  to  be 
wished  that  some  one  would  find  out  for  us  who  was 
the  Christian  woman  of  wealth  who  had  so  much 
interest  in  freedom  of  worship,  that  she  assisted  the 
struggling  colony. 

Now  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  these  men 
from  year  to  year  were  learning  that  New  England 
offered  a  promising  field  for  adventure.  They  would 
lose  a  cargo  now  and  then,  when  it  was  taken  by 
a  Sallee  Rover,  or  by  a  French  pirate;  but  in  those 
days  men  were  used  to  losing  cargoes.  And  when 
a  cargo  of  beaver  skins  arrived,  or  even,  as  it 
would  seem,  a  cargo  of  clapboards,  they  sold  at 
high  prices,  which  more  than  justified  the  expense 
which  had  been  put  upon  them.  As  we  have  seen, 
in  1627  a  payment  of  seventeen  hundred  pounds 
was  made  to  these  adventurers.  We  have  not  the 
materials  from  which  it  is  possible  to  strike  the 
balance,  and  see  how  nearly  this  payment  repaid 
their  expenditures  during  the  seven  years.  But  on 
the  whole,  so  far  as  we  can  disentangle  the  original 
stock  from  a  dozen  different  adventures,  made  now 
by  one,  now  by  two  or  three  of  their  company,  it 
would  seem  that  their  principal  was  all  returned  to 
them,  and  that  so  much  profit  had  been  made  as, 
in  our  times,  we  should  consider  a  very  adequate 
result  of  the  adventure. 

The  passage,  then,  of  seven  years,  from  the  time 
when  Cushman  and  Weston  made  their  difficult 
negotiations  with  men  of  wealth  in  England,  made 
such  matters  much  easier  in  1627  than  they  were  in 


THE  EMIGRATION  TO    THE  BAY.          53 

1619.  It  was  in  the  year  1627  that,  under  the  direct 
impulse  of  the  Rev.  John  White,  what  we  now  know 
as  the  "  Massachusetts  Company  "  was  formed,  really 
to  do  the  same  thing,  on  a  large  scale  and  with  a  gen- 
erous capital,  which  the  handful  of  Leyden  adve"nt- 
urers  had  tried  to  do  on  a  small  scale,  and  under  the 
frown  of  the  government.  A  body  of  merchants  of 
character  and  position  in  Dorchester  united  them- 
selves with  a  larger  body  of  such  men  in  London,  to 
form  the  Massachusetts  Company.  It  was  formed 
precisely  as  in  those  days  trading  companies  were 
often  formed,  for  the  development  of  the  resources  of 
Massachusetts  Bay,  and  a  subscription  to  its  stock 
did  not  in  the  least  imply  that  the  subscribers  in- 
tended to  go  to  Massachusetts  Bay  themselves. 
They  simply  meant  to  send  out  settlers  there,  and  to 
furnish  the  capital  on  which  adventures  of  hunting, 
fishing,  mining,  and,  if  necessary,  agriculture,  could 
be  carried  on.  These  men  undoubtedly  expected  to 
receive  a  fair  interest  on  the  capital  which  they 
invested.  At  the  same  time  they  meant  to  make 
an  establishment  in  Massachusetts  Bay,  where  men 
could  worship  God  as  they  chose,  without  being 
under  the  direction  of  Archbishop  Laud,  or  of  his 
court  of  the  Star  Chamber.  In  all  the  discussion 
with  regard  to  their  motives  which  comes  up  from 
time  to  time,  no  one  has  ever  attempted  to  show  that 
a  single  person  invested  a  penny  in  the  stock  of  the 
new  company,  who  was  not  committed,  more  or  less 
directly,  to  the  Puritan  or  popular  view,  in  the  contest 
with  the  established  church  or  with  the  Crown. 


54         THE  EMIGRATION  TO    THE  BAY. 

This  body,  it  will  be  observed,  was  no  company  of 
unknown  exiles,  asking  for  a  patent.  It  was  a  body 
of  rich  and  respected  merchants,  accustomed  to  suc- 
cess, and  holding  that  position  which  no  government 
likes  to  offend.  When,  therefore,  they  asked  for  a 
State  charter  for  a  tract  in  Massachusetts  Bay,  no- 
body inquired  of  them  how  they  meant  to  appoint 
their  ministers,  or  what  was  to  be  the  detail  of  their 
administration.  They  had  not  the  difficulty  there 
which  checked  so  seriously  the  movements  of  the 
Pilgrims  ten  years  before.  A  charter  was  issued  to 
them,  giving  them  the  ordinary  powers  for  trade 
and  for  local  government,  for  the  region  known  as 
Massachusetts  Bay ;  and,  for  the  definition  of  this 
territory,  they  were  authorized  to  enter  upon  any 
lands  from  a  line  three  miles  north  of  Merrimac 
River,  to  a  line  three  miles  south  of  the  Charles 
River,  in  a  strip  which  reached  across  to  the  South 
Sea.  It  must  be  remembered  that,  at  that  time,  all 
geographers  thought  that  the  South  Sea  was  not  far 
distant,  westward  from  the  Atlantic. 

We  have  their  Company  records  almost  from  the 
beginning.  They  make  in  themselves  a  very  curious 
history,  and  are  well  worth  the  study  of  any  Massa- 
chusetts man,  or  of  any  person,  indeed,  who  is 
interested  in  the  healthy  growth  of  an  infant  State. 
As  early  as  1628,  the  company  sent  out  what  may  be 
called  its  first  colony,  in  sending  John  Endicott,  who 
was  to  be  the  commander-in-chief,  or,  as  we  should 
say,  general  agent,  for  its  affairs,  to  whom  were 
joined  Francis  Higginson  as  preachex  to  the  infant 


THE  EMIGRATION   TO    THE  BAY.          55 

settlement,  and  others,  who  were  to  make  the  first 
establishment.  His  party  arrived  at  Cape  Ann  on 
the  thirteenth  day  of  September,  and  soon  proceeded 
to  Salem,  where  they  established  themselves.  They 
spent  the  winter  of  1629  in  Salem,  built  their  meet- 
ing-house and  established  their  church,  and  the  other 
institutions  of  a  new  settlement.  There  is  some 
question  whether  a  colony  had  been  maintained  at 
Weymouth,  where  two  unfortunate  beginnings  had 
been  made.  Weymouth  and  Salem  must  decide 
between  them  which  has  the  honor  of  being  the  first 
settled  town  in  what  was  to  become  the  Colony  of 
Massachusetts  Bay.  In  the  year  1629  the  company 
sent  out  large  supplies,  with  Francis  Higginson  the 
preacher  and  his  family.  They  sent  again  ships  to  fish 
upon  the  coast,  with  the  intention  that  they  should 
dry  their  fish  at  the  establishments  which  had  been 
begun  in  the  Bay,  and  bring  back  the  cargoes  in  the 
fall.  Such  had  been  the  course  of  trade  which 
proved  the  most  successful. 

Meanwhile,  however,  the  pressure  upon  men's  con- 
sciences, under  the  arbitrary  effort  of  Charles  and 
his  party  to  govern  without  Parliament,  especially 
under  the  oppression  of  the  Star  Chamber  and  Arch- 
bishop Laud,  became  more  and  more  hard  to  bear. 
It  was  under  this  pressure  that  several  gentlemen, 
who  had  probably  joined  the  company  almost  wholly 
from  political  and  religious  views,  offered  to  go 
themselves  to  America,  if  they  might  be  permitted 
to  take  with  them  the  charter  of  the  company,  and 
carry  on  its  government  on  the  ground.  No  bolder 


56  THE  EMIGRATION  TO    THE  BAY. 

move  was  ever  made — and,  as  it  proved,  no  wiser. 
They  did  not  ask  the  Council  of  Virginia  or  the 
Crown  of  England  if  the  course  which  they  proposed 
to  take  would  be  agreeable.  They  took  it,  as  they 
had  undoubtedly  the  right  to  take  it,  and  it  does  not 
seem  to  have  occurred  to  any  one  of  the  royal  party 
to  question  their  right,  or  to  attempt  to  hinder  them. 
A  few  years  later,  the  Crown  attempted  to  check 
emigration,  excepting  by  its  own  consent,  but,  in 
1630,  either  these  people  were  too  important  to  be 
thwarted,  or  they  had  too  many  friends  at  court  and 
in  the  administration.  There  is  no  evidence  that 
there  was  any  secrecy,  or  that  the  government  lifted 
a  finger  to  restrain  them. 

The  leader  of  these  men  was  John  Winthrop,  a 
man  who  is  always  to  be  remembered  in  the  list,  too 
scanty,  of  the  founders  of  States.  Other  men  of 
mark  who  joined  him  were  Isaac  Johnson,  Thomas 
Dudley,  John  Humphrey,  Increase  Nowell,  Sir  Rich- 
ard Saltonstall,  Richard  Bellingham,  afterwards  gov- 
ernor, William  Rynshay,  John  Davenport,  Emanuel 
Downing,  Nathaniel  Ward,  Simon  Bradstreet,  William 
Coddington,  who  represented  rich  and  influential 
families,  and  whose  determination  to  stake  them- 
selves on  the  enterprise  must  have  arrested  wide 
attention.  Where  the  handful  of  Leyden  emigrants 
were  obliged  to  satisfy  themselves  with  one  vessel, 
this  company  of  gentlefolk  chartered  a  fleet  of  thir- 
teen. Every  preparation  was  made,  with  the  advan- 
tage of  the  experience  of  half  a  century  in  such 
affairs,  and  there  was  no  lack  of  money.  Above  all, 


THE  EMIGRATION  TO    THE  BAY.  57 

they  had  learned  well  the  great  lesson  that  they  must 
sail  in  the  early  spring,  and  establish  themselves  in 
their  new  homes  before  the  hardships  of  winter. 
The  experience  of  the  fishermen  on  the  coast,  and 
of  the  Pilgrim  settlers  at  Plymouth,  taught  them  by 
this  time  what  the  climate  was. 

It  is  pathetic  and  curious  to  observe  that  the  Pil- 
grim colonists  landed  at  Plymouth  on  the  shortest 
day  in  the  year.  Poetry  and  eloquence  and  the 
sympathy  of  a  nation  have  of  course  seized  on  this 
critical  coincidence,  and  the  astronomical  fact  that 
from  that  moment  the  days  began  to  grow  longer 
and  the  sun  to  rise  higher  in  the  western  world  has 
been  made  the  theme  of  a  thousand  poets  and 
orators.  It  is  equally  curious,  though  for  obvious 
reasons  the  fact  has  attracted  less  enthusiasm,  that 
the  ship  of  Winthrop,  the  leader  of  the  prosperous 
and  wealthy  colony,  arrived  in  Snlern  harbor  on  the 
longest  day  in  the  year.  The  vessel  came  to  anchor, 
and  the  enfranchised  passengers  landed,  upon  a  world 
of  ripe  strawberries,  of  roses  in  bloom,  and  of  all 
the  fresh  and  fragrant  delights  of  that  rarest  thing 
on  earth,  "  a  day  in  June."  The  marvelous  pros- 
perity, the  cheer  and  comfort,  which,  on  the  whole, 
the  people  of  Massachusetts  Bay  have  known  from 
the  beginning,  were  typified  and  prefigured,  had 
Winthrop  but  known  it,  in  the  charming  surround- 
ings of  his  landing  and  that  of  his  associates. 

He  was  most  cordially  received  by  Endicott  and 
Higginson  and  the  others  at  Salem.  The  rest  of  the 
fleet  came  in,  ship  after  ship,  after  voyages  which,  on 


58          THE  EMIGRATION  TO    THE  BAY. 

the  whole,  had  been  prosperous.  The  Dorchester 
contingent  had  formed  itself  into  a  church  in  the 
city  of  its  home  before  sailing.  After  a  few  days' 
delay  at  Nantasket,  these  people  selected  the  spot 
still  known  as  Dorchester,  now  a  part  of  the  corpo- 
ration of  Boston,  where  they  established  themselves. 
Thus,  by  the  good  fortune  of  this  early  organization, 
Dorchester  claims  the  honor  of  being  the  first-born 
of  the  churches  of  that  emigration.  Winthrop  and 
his  immediate  friends  determined  at  first  on  Charles- 
town,  where  they  found  a  single  settler,  as  the  site 
of  the  settlement  which  they  supposed,  perhaps, 
would  be  the  seat  of  the  government.  George  Phil- 
lips, one  of  the  most  brilliant  preachers,  with  a  com- 
pany of  his  friends,  went  as  far  up  the  Charles  River 
as  its  falls,  and  established  themselves  at  Watertown. 
A  part  of  the  colonists  remained  at  Salem,  and 
strengthened  the  settlement  there.  The  vessels  were 
unladen,  and  most  of  them  were  sent  home  to 
England,  with  accounts  sufficiently  flattering  of  the 
beginning  of  the  new  adventure.  But  before  the 
summer  ended,  these  prosperous  settlers  also  had 
their  share  of  misfortune  and  calamity.  Poor  Win- 
throp was  doomed  to  lose  a  son,  who  was  drowned 
in  a  little  stream  between  Salem  and  Boston.  It 
was  as  Bradford,  the  first  governor  at  Plymouth,  had 
lost  his  son  and  his  wife  in  the  exigencies  of  the 
beginning.  The  establishment  made  at  Charlestown 
was  checked  by  the  lack  of  drinking-water,  and  it 
was  then  that  William  Blaxton,  a  mysterious  person 
who  had  been  a  clergyman  of  the  English  Church, 


THE  EMIGRATION  TO    THE  BAY.          59 

and  was  living  a  hermit's  life  on  the  peninsula  of 
Shawmut,  which  we  now  call  Boston,  invited  Win- 
throp  to  come  over  and  see  the  advantages  of  the 
place  for  a  settlement.  Now  that  Boston  is  a  large 
and  crowded  city,  it  is  interesting  to  know  what  it 
was  in  Blackstone's  day.  He  had  a  garden,  which 
perhaps  would  now  be  called  a  farm,  on  the  west 
side  of  the  peninsula,  and  a  well-established  tradition 
makes  it  probable  that  the  present  lines  of  the  Com- 
mon correspond  quite  nearly  to  those  of  an  inclosure 
which  he  had  made  for  a  pasture.  His  house  was 
not  far  from  the  present  line  of  Beacon  Street,  in 
the  neighborhood  of  what  is  known  as  Spruce  Street. 
Blackstone  showed  the  visitors  a  stream  of  fresh 
water,  rising  on  the  exact  spot  now  occupied  by  the 
United  States  post-office.  In  the  excavations  for 
the  foundations  of  that  building,  a  stream  of  water 
broke  forth  again,  which  was  supposed  to  have 
flowed  just  where  the  stream  flowed  which  was  the 
temptation  for  a  settlement.  Winthrop,  who  had 
almost  determined  to  establish  himself  at  Cambridge, 
joined  the  company  of  those  who  removed  to  Boston, 
and,  in  the  autumn,  a  settlement  was  begun  there. 
It  was  wholly  in  what  we  now  call  the  North  End 
of  the  town,  and  probably  extended  up  the  lines  of 
what  is  now  known  as  Hanover  Street. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE    FIRST    WINTEK. 

OF  all  lotteries,  the  risks  are  the  most  terrible 
in  that  where  one  chooses  a  new  home ; 
worst  of  all,  probably,  when  he  changes  from  conti- 
nent to  continent  in  the  choosing.  When  Winthrop 
and  his  friends  had  fairly  surveyed  the  scene  of  their 
new  empire,  there  must,  even  to  the  most  philo- 
sophical, have  been  a  disappointment.  The  pastures 
around  Salem  are  now  much  what  they  were  then. 
An  ungracious  granite  protrudes  from  the  scanty 
soil,  in  knolls,  without  even  much  picturesqueness, 
and  promises  no  crops  beyond  that  of  lichens. 

Winthrop  notes  in  his  journal  that  they  were 
regaled  with  strawberries  on  landing ;  and  they  were 
born  into  their  new  life  with  all  the  glories  of  June. 
But  they  were  not  satisfied  with  Naumkeag  or  Salem 
for  the  capital  seat  of  their  settlement,  and  pushed 
up  the  Bay  to  see  the  mouth  of  Charles  River  and  of 
Mystic  River.  At  Charlestown  there  was  a  settle- 
ment of  nine  persons,  who  had  joined  Walford  the 
smith,  who  once  held  that  peninsula  alone ;  and 
here  they  brought  the  ships  as  they  arrived  in  suc- 
cessive weeks,  and  to  this  place  they  transferred  the 
stores  which  had  been  discharged  at  Salem. 


THE  FIRST  WINTER.  61 

The  number  of  emigrants  who  arrived  in  seven- 
teen vessels  this  summer  was  not  quite  one  thou- 
sand.* Of  these  nearly  one  hundred  returned  in 
the  ships. 

They  lost  time  in  the  first  summer  by  a  doubt  as  to 
the  place  of  the  capital.  The  first  intention  was  to 
place  it  three  leagues  up  Charles  River,  or,  as  Fuller 
pays,  at  the  "  head  of  the  river."  By  any  reasonable 
measurement  this  would  bring  it  to  the  mouth  of 
Stony  Brook  in  Waltharn.  And  since  Mr.  Horsford 
found  there  what  may  be  thought  a  ditch  for  a 
palisade,  Mr.  Winsor  has  suggested  that  possibly 
this  spot  was,  at  one  moment,  selected  for  the  cap- 
ital. But  it  is  hard  to  say  why  Northmen,  Biscayans, 
or  anybod}^  else  with  average  common  sense,  should 
have  placed  the  capital  of  a  commercial  State  on  a 
shallow  river,  where  two  falls  of  water  obstruct  the 
passage  from  sea  to  city.  Whatever  was  intended 
in  this  three-league  plan,  nothing  came  of  it  but 
delay.  The  Dorchester  party  settled  at  the  mouth 
of  Neponset,  and  called  their  home  Dorchester. 
They  could  pasture  their  cattle  there.  The  penin- 
sula which  we  call  South  Boston,  was  called  Dor- 
chester Neck.  Another  party  under  Sir  Richard 
Saltonstall  went  to  Watertown.  With  them  came 
George  Phillips,  —  the  most  eloquent  of  their 
preachers,  —  whose  eloquence  has  been  transmitted 
to  descendants  who  bore  his  name.  Here  the  first 
winter  his  baby  was  born,  —  to  whom  he  gave 

*  Hntchinson  says  fifteen  hundred ;  but  he  was  misled  by  a  late  statement  in  the 
Charlestown  records. 


62  THE  FIRST    WINTER. 

the  name,  "One  who  has  left  Babel  behind,"  — 
Zerubabel.  With  such  humors  was  that  winter- 
cheered. 

A  "  great  house  "  was  built  at  Charlestown,  as  a 
store-house  for  the  goods  belonging  to  the  company, 
and  this  was  used  as  a  place  of  worship  until  1636.1 
But  the  settlers  were  not  satisfied  with  the  drinking- 
water  they  found  at  Charlestown,  having,  at  that 
time,  a  prejudice,  which  perhaps  exists  in  England 
still,  against  the  use  of  water  from  running  streams. 
William  Blaxton,  was  living  on  the  south  side  of 
Charles  River,  on  what  was  called  Blaxton's  Neck, 
or  Trimountain.  The  latter  name  came  from  three 
hillocks  which  broke  the  summit  of  the  hill  after- 
ward known  as  Beacon  Hill.  Blaxton  told  the 
leaders  of  the  colony  that  there  was  no  lack  of  spring 
water  on  his  side,  and  at  his  suggestion  many  of  the 
colonists  removed  there.  All  parties  did  their  best 
to  prepare  for  winter.  It  was,  of  course,  too  late  to 
do  much  in  the  way  of  agriculture.  And  so  late 
were  the  final  determinations  as  to  their  homes,  that 
winter  found  many  of  the  poorer  people  in  tents,  or 
badly  arranged  cabins. 

Among  the  early  records  of  the  council  is  a  mem- 
orandum, which  must  have  been  dictated  by  Win- 
throp's  wisdom,  providing  for  each  settler  a  blank 
book,  in  which  he  should  write  the  record  of  the 
beginning  of  an  empire.  Winthrop  foresaw  the 
eagerness  with  which  we  should  look  for  every  such 
memento.  If  these  books  were  provided,  every  one 
of  them  is  lost,  excepting  that  which  he  filled  so 


THE  FIRST   WINTER.  63 

well,  and  the  suggestion  appears  well  founded,  which 
was  made  by  a  distinguished  lady  of  the  last  genera- 
tion, that  it  seemed  as  if  all  of  them,  on  landing, 
assembled  at  their  respective  altars,  and  made  a 
solemn  vow  that,  so  far  as  in  them  lay,  they  would 
leave  no  record  behind,  from  which  posterity  should 
know  what  were  the  shadows,  and  what  were  the 
broken  lights,  in  the  picture  of  their  daily  life.  It 
must  be  confessed  that  there  never  was  a  race 
which  had  less  faculty  for  the  preservation  of  what 
the  French  make  so  well,  and  what  they  have  happily 
called  memoirs  of  history,  as  this  race  of  New  Eng- 
landers.  They  had  the  historic  English  grit.  They 
died  and  made  no  sign  ;  they  bit  their  lips  and  bore 
their  sufferings.  They  seem  to  have  taken  in  the 
passive  quietness  of  the  Indians  among  whom  they 
lived. 

Winthrop  is  the  great  exception.  In  all  the  cares 
of  State  he  wrote  his  journal,  which  becomes  the  his- 
tory of  New  England  until  his  death.  For  the  rest, 
our  authorities  for  the  first  year  are  the  monthly 
record  of  the  Government  ;  the  letter  which  Dudley 
wrote  to  the  Countess  of  Lincoln  in  March,  after  the 
winter  was  mostly  over ;  the  random  recollections 
of  Captain  Roger  Clapp,  written  after  a  generation  ; 
the  recollections,  much  more  at  random  and  more 
rambling,  of  Edward  Johnson  ;  the  traditions  which 
Cotton  Mather  put  down  in  the  Magnalia,  and  a  few 
entries  in  the  most  ancient  church  records.  After 
a  generation,  the  records  of  Charlestown  were  writ- 
ten up  with  reminiscences,  undoubtedly  fresh,  of 


64  THE  FIRST   WINTER. 

the  beginning.  But  of  absolutely  contemporaneous 
accounts,  we  have  almost  nothing. 

In  the  preceding  chapters  the  reader  has  seen  how 
the  Pilgrims,  landing  one  hundred  and  one  in  num- 
ber, were  reduced  to  half  that  number  at  the  end  of 
a  year.  Of  these  gallant  emigrants,  it  is  recorded 
that  not  one  went  back  in  the  Mayflower ;  the  loss 
to  the  colony  was  of  those  whose  bodies  were  laid 
under  the  ground.  Of  those  who  arrived  with  Win- 
throp,  nearly  but  not  quite  one  thousand  in  number, 
one  hundred  returned  at  once,  dissatisfied  with  the 
country,  and  annoyed,  probably,  at  the  over-state- 
ment which  they  considered  had  been  made  to  them. 
Of  the  eight  or  nine  hundred  who  remained,  more 
than  two  hundred  were  dead  when  Dudley  wrote  in 
March ;  —  so  terrible  then  was  the  business  of  acclima- 
tion. Or  perhnps  it  is  better  to  say  that  voyages 
were  then  so  long  and  vessels  fitted  out  so  badly, 
that  the  scurvy  of  the  voyage  undermined  the  con- 
stitutions of  those  who  came,  so  that  they  were  not 
able  to  bear  the  change  of  food. 

There  is  one  and  another  allusion  to  the  fact  that 
these  people,  bred  to  the  use  of  English  wheat,  rye 
and  barley,  disliked  the  bread  made  of  Indian  corn. 
They  probably  had  not  yet  learned  the  art,  which  is 
not  an  easy  art  to  this  day,  of  properly  subduing 
that  grain  by  the  processes  of  cookery.  A  little 
fragment  from  one  of  the  early  ballads  throws  some 
little  light  on  the  cookery  of  those  times;  but,  as 
the  lady  before  alluded  to  has  said  so  well,  the 
contemporary  writers  of  dinries  were  most  careful 


THE  FIRST  WINTER.  65 

to  decline  to  give  details  on  such  subjects  of  personal 
interest.  * 

After  the  abandonment  of  the  scheme  for  a  city 
three  leagues  inland,!  all  the  leaders  repaired  to 
Cambridge,  and  determined  to  lay  out  the  capital  of 
the  colony  there.  It  is  impossible  to  this  day  to 
make  trees  grow  to  any  advantage  on  the  Cam- 
bridge Common,  and  the  tradition  of  the  University 
till  a  late  time,  has  been  that  here  was  the  only  spot 
where  the  settlers  did  not  have  to  cut  down  the  trees 
at  the  beginning.  This  tradition  may  or  may  not 
have  been  made  by  the  satire  of  later  times.  It  is 
certain  that  Winthrop,  Dudley,  and  the  rest  of  the 
leaders,  agreed  to  build  their  houses  there,  and  that 
the  whole  colony  was  assessed  for  a  canal,  of  which 
some  parts  perhaps  still  exist,  by  which  the  neces- 
sary stores  were  to  be  carried  across  the  marsh  from 
the  river  up  to  the  present  foundation  of  Cambridge. 
There  now  exists,  on  the  Brighton  road,  so  called, 
one  of  the  houses  built  at  that  time.  The  terror  of 
the  Indians  remained,  and  a  palisade  was  begun, 
probably  quite  similar  to  the  stockades  which  are 
now  built  around  our  forts  in  the  Western  region. 
The  line  of  this  stockade  is  well  known,  and  some 
of  the  willow-trees  which  were  wrought  into  it,  still 
exist  in  the  rear  of  the  museum  of  natural  history 
at  Cambridge,  while  at  the  western  end  some  traces 


*  In  1849, 1  said  to  Mr.  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  who  was  visiting  me  at  my  home  in 
Worcester,  that  the  Irish  emigrants  did  not  like  Indian  meal.  "  You  should  have  sent 
them  hot  cakes,"  he  said,  with  all  his  native  wisdom.  —  E.  E.  II. 

t  If,  indeed,  there  were  any  such  scheme,  and  if  "  three  leagues"  was  not  an  acci- 
dental slip  of  the  pen  by  Dudley  instead  of  "  three  miles." 


66  THE  FIRST  WINTER. 

of  it  may  be  found  near  the  river.  It  took  in  more 
than  a  hundred  acres,  and  here  it  was  supposed  that 
the  capital  would  be  built.  But  after  these  prepara- 
tions had  been  made,  Winthrop  was  satisfied  that 
the  design  could  not  be  carried  out,  and  he  removed 
the  frame  already  made  for  his  own  building  to  the 
other  side  of  the  river,  and  built  his  house  on  what 
is  now  Washington  Street  in  Boston.  The  place  is 
well  known ;  it  is  opposite  the  foot  of  School  Street, 
just  north  of  the  Old  South  Meeting-House.  The 
house  which  he  built  remained  there  until  1775, 
when,  by  one  of  those  curious  bits  of  symbolism  of 
which  history  is  full,  the  English  soldiers  pulled  it 
down  and  burned  it  for  fuel.  So  precise  is  the 
arrangement  of  the  materials  of  history. 

With  Winthrop's  abandonment  of  Cambridge, 
Cambridge  virtually  ceased  to  be  the  capital.  The 
capital  followed  the  governor.  Dudley  was  dissatis- 
fied, and  the  matter  became  one  which  required 
a  somewhat  formal  reconciliation.  But  Winthrop 
showed  that  he  had  not  acted  lightly  and  had  not 
used  bad  faith  in  the  matter.  It  is  worth  noticing 
(that,  though  the  name  Boston  had  been  given  to 
the  peninsula,  out  of  deference  to  Johnson  and  other 
settlers  of  importance  who  came  from  the  Boston  in 
England,  the  town  was  so  slow  in  its  growth  and 
seemed  to  so  much  lack  all  elements  of  success  that, 
for  a  year  or  two,  it  was  called  "  Lost  Town "  in 
ridicule  by  the  more  prosperous  settlements  around 
it.  With  such  delays  in  some  points,  but  with  vigo- 
rous work  undoubtedly,  the  summer  passed.  All 


THE  FIRST   WINTER.  67 

fear  of  Indians  died  away,  as  the  wretched  red-skins 
showed  themselves  more  as  paupers  than  as  warriors ; 
the  time  and  means  which  were  spent  at  first  on  for- 
tifications were  devoted  to  the  building  of  houses, 
and  some  sort  of  shelter  was  arranged  for  the  more 
prosperous  part  of  the  population  before  the  winter 
came  in.  It  was  a  mild  winter  until  the  day  before 
Christmas,  when  New  England  showed  what  it  could 
do.  A  heavy  snowstorm  and  severe  cold  disturbed 
the  fancies  of  those  who  thought  they  were  going 
to  spend  such  a  winter  as  they  had  known  in  Eng- 
land, and  from  this  time  till  the  middle  of  March 
their  experiences  were  hard. 

When  the  leaders  arrived  in  June  of  1630  and 
found  the  destitution  of  the  previous  winter,  they 
knew  that  they  had  not  stores  enough  from  England 
to  carry  them  through  another  such  experience,  with 
the  increased  number  of  settlers.  They  therefore 
dispatched  the  Lion  with  instructions  to  bring  back 
provisions  immediately;  and  the  return  of  the  Lion 
became  a  critical  matter  for  the  colony.  Not  that 
it  was  possible  for  a  thousand  people  to  starve  in  a 
country  where  fish  were  to  be  had  for  the  catching. 
But  for  every  sort  of  discomfort,  short  of  starvation, 
the  leaders  had  to  prepare  themselves  and  those  who 
looked  to  them,  until  the  Lion  should  return. 

The  period  of  history  when  the  State  of  Massachu- 
setts was  most  in  peril  comes,  therefore,  into  the 
early  winter  of  1630-31.  But  on  the  fifth  of  Feb- 
ruary the  Lion  appeared  at  Nantasket  with  the 
stores  which  had  been  provided  by  the  forethought 


68  THE  FIRST  WINTER. 

of  Winthrop  when  she  was  sent  home.  We  have 
the  detail  of  the  provisions  in  her  cargo,  and  from 
these  can  form  some  idea  of  the  daily  fare  of  the 
new  settlers.  She  brought :  wheat  meal,  two  hun- 
dred and  seventy-two  bushels,  about  half  as  much 
of  peas,  one  hundred  and  twenty-eight  bushels  of 
oatmeal,  four  hogsheads  of  beef  and  pork,  and  be- 
sides these  cheese,  butter,  and  suet.  She  brought 
three  hundred  trees,  which  were  probably  fruit  trees. 
The  cost  of  the  provisions  on  board  was  a  little  more 
than  two  hundred  pounds.  It  is  to  be  noted  that 
Winthrop  paid  in  Bristol  in  England  eight  shillings 
and  sixpence  a  bushel  for  the  wheat  meal,  and  that 
Dudley,  writing  at  the  very  end  of  what  was  almost 
a  famine  in  Boston,  speaks  of  paying  fourteen  shil- 
lings a  bushel  for  wheat,  and  eleven  shillings  for 
peas,  and  says  that  was  the  most  costly  bread  which 
he  had  ever  eaten. 

Meanwhile,  in  the  months  which  passed  after  the 
government  was  fairly  installed  in  Massachusetts, 
the  revolution  was  effected  by  which  the  board  of 
directors  of  a  trading  company  became  the  govern- 
ment of  an  independent  State.  Of  these  directors 
there  were  eight  who  had  been  chosen  in  England 
under  the  charter.  They  were  just  the  men  who 
would  have  met  at  a  "  directors'  meeting  "  at  home. 
They  met  as  the  "Court  of  Assistants,"  some- 
times at  Charlestown,  sometimes  at  Boston,  and  once 
at  Watertown,  being  called,  apparently,  as  conven- 
ience required.  They  held  nine  regular  meetings  be- 
tween the  twenty-third  of  August  and  the  twenty- 


THE  FIRST   WINTER.  69 

fifth  of  March.  These  meetings  were  in  part  directed 
to  the  management  of  the  company,  but  they  were 
directed  as  well  to  judicial  examinations  and  to  legis- 
lation for  the  infant  State.  By  a  very  natural  habit, 
they  did  not  hesitate  to  name  the  price  which  sawyers 
should  be  paid  for  their  work,  nor  to  make  regulations 
with  regard  to  trade  with  the  Indians.  As  readily 
did  they  make  regulations  with  regard  to  trade  with 
each  other.  They  seem  to  have  asked  no  questions 
whether  they  had  or  had  not  the  right  to  do  this ; 
the  things  must  be  done,  somebody  must  do  them, 
and  they  did  them.  The  only  difficult  constitutional 
matter  which  they  had  to  settle  was  settled  as 
simply.  What  with  the  death  of  one  and  another 
member  of  their  body  and  the  return  to  Europe  of 
others,  although  they  had  added  some  by  election, 
they  were  likely  to  have  great  difficulty  in  making 
a  quorum.  A  quorum  under  their  charter  was 
seven  members  of  the  board ;  they  coolly  passed  an 
ordinance  that,  when  there  were  but  nine  members 
in  the  colony,  a  majority  should  make  a  quorum. 
There  is,  however,  but  one  meeting  recorded  at 
which  they  did  not  have  the  quorum  prescribed  for 
them. 

We  have  an  opportunity  to  see  how  much  it  cost 
to  live,  and  what  was  considered  a  reasonable  income, 
because  this  court  assigned  the  stipends  for  the  two 
ministers  and  the  physician  whom  the  colony  en- 
gaged. The  settlers  at  Mattapan  and  those  at 
Salem  were  expected  to  provide  for  their  own  min- 
ister, but  Wilson  and  Phillips  were  engaged  by  the 


70  THE  FIRST  WINTER. 

colony  as  a  whole,  and  the  colony  as  a  whole  had  to 
provide  for  them.  Wilson  had  no  family  with  him ; 
Phillips,  as  has  been  said,  had  a  wife  and  child. 
For  their  support,  he  was  allowed  twenty-four  bush- 
els of  meal,  eight  of  malt,  four  of  Indian  corn,  and 
one  of  oatmeal.  He  was  also  to  have  half  a  hundred 
of  salt  codfish.  For  apparel  and  other  provisions  he 
was  allowed  twenty  pounds.  If  he  preferred,  he 
might  have  forty  pounds  given  him  in  money.  Mr. 
Wilson  was  to  have  half  this  sum  till  his  wife  should 
come  over.  Mr.  Gager,  the  physician,  had  a  similar 
allowance,  but  he  was  to  have  a  house  built  for  him 
and  a  cow  given  him.  He  died,  however,  so  soon 
that  one  of  their  chief  sufferings  was  the  lack  of  any 
medical  attendance.  Fuller  came  over  from  Ply- 
mouth when  he  could,  but  his  home  was  in  that 
colony  and  he  had  the  Plymouth  people  to  attend 
to.  He  also  says  that  he  was  without  medicines  at 
Charlestown,  but  this  may  have  been  before  the 
arrival  of  the  ship  in  which  they  had  been  sent. 
Penn,  who  was  appointed  beadle  —  by  which  was 
meant  an  officer  whom  we  should  call  marshal,  sheriff, 
and  janitor  together  —  was  allowed  twenty  nobles  a 
year  for  his  salary,  and  in  the  spring  a  day's  work 
of  a  man  from  every  able  family  to  help  build  his 
house.  He  was  to  attend  upon  the  governor,  and 
be  always  ready  to  execute  his  commands  in  the 
public  business. 

The  new  court,  at  its  second  meeting,  sent  for 
Morton  of  Mount  Wollaston,  whose  revels  have 
thrown  a  little  air  of  gayety  over  the  early  history,  and 


THE  FIRST  WINTER.  71 

put  him  in  the  bilboes.  They  afterwards  sent  him 
to  England,  where  he  revenged  himself  by  his  satires 
upon  them.  The  court  ordered  that  he  should  give 
satisfaction  to  the  Indians  for  a  canoe  he  had  taken 
away  from  them  unjustly,  and  that  his  house,  after 
his  goods  were  taken  out,  should  be  burned  down  in 
sight  of  the  Indians,  for  their  satisfaction  for  many 
wrongs  he  had  done  them  from  time  to  time. 

They  had  to  deal  with  difficulties  regarding  the 
sale  of  "  strong  water,"  as  their  successors  have  had 
to  do  from  that  time  to  this. 

There  must  have  been  a  short  period  when  there 
were  hardly  any  members  of  the  company  in  the 
country,  besides  these  directors,  as  I  have  called 
them,  or  assistants.  But  they  had  no  intention  of 
governing  the  country  by  such  an  oligarchy,  and  at 
the  General  Court  held  on  the  nineteenth  of  October, 
the  people  were  present,  and  "  voted  by  the  erection 
of  hands."  At  the  same  time  more  than  a  hundred 
persons  offered  themselves  to  be  admitted  as  free- 
men, or  to  become  members  of  the  company,  and 
were  at  once  received.  From  time  to  time  after- 
ward, the  number  enlarged  itself  in  this  way.  They 
very  soon  made  the  rule,  which  gave  great  offense 
to  the  Crown  afterward,  that  no  person  should  be 
received  as  a  freeman  who  was  not  a  member  of  one 
of  their  established  churches.  As  at  that  time, 
however,  none  of  these  churches  had  what  we  call 
creeds,  as  they  consisted  of  all  persons  who  were 
willing  to  covenant  to  "  walk  together,"  the  restric- 
tion was  not  as  severe  as  it  would  have  been  in 


72  THE  FIRST  WINTER. 

after  days,  when  men  were  obliged  to  express  their 
opinions  in  detail  on  delicate  and  controverted  sub- 
jects of  theology. 

The  houses  which  they  built  were  of  very  much 
the  fashion  to  which  they  were  accustomed.  Several 
houses  are  still  standing,  as  old  as  1634.  There  is 
a  brick  house  in  Medford,  which  was  built  in  hope 
that  Cradock,  who  had  been  what  we  should  call 
the  president  of  the  company  in  England,  would 
himself  come  over.  It  has  an  old-fashioned  look 
now,  but  does  not  materially  differ  in  aspect  from 
any  house  which  might  have  been  built  within  the 
next  century.  Sometimes  a  wooden  house  was  built 
with  the  second  story  projecting  a  little  over  the 
first,  and  the  tradition  in  New  England  says  that 
this  projection  was  so  made  that  the  inmates  might 
fire  down  upon  the  heads  of  Indians  who  were 
attempting  to  break  in  the  doors.  But  this  tradition 
is  wholly  mythical.  Houses  of  exactly  the  same 
construction,  belonging  to  the  same  time,  may  be 
seen  in  England  to-day. 

There  could  have  been  but  little  agricultural  work, 
as  has  been  suggested,  after  they  were  fairly  estab- 
lished, till  the  end  of  the  year ;  and  we  are  willing 
to  suppose  that  the  four  or  five  hundred  able-bodied 
men  in  the  colony  were  engaged  mostly  in  this  busi- 
ness of  house-building.  They  had  the  weekly  enter- 
tainment of  religious  service  on  Sunday.  After  the 
suffering  by  death  became  severe  and  when  famine 
was  pressing  upon  them,  Wilson  undertook  to  show 
that  this  was  in  the  providence  of  God,  who  was 


THE  FIE  1ST  WIN  TEH.  73 

angry  with  them  for  something  they  had  done 
wrong.  But  even  Dudley,  who  was  a  stanch  old 
Puritan,  seems  to  have  resented  this,  and  he  says 
rather  curtly,  in  writing  home  to  the  Countess 
of  Lincoln,  that  he  leaves  such  matters  to  the  physi- 
cians and  the  divines.  They  elected  their  clergy  in 
every  instance,  and  the  clergy  were  eager  to  show 
that  they  took  this  office  because  they  were  elected. 
They  did  not  say  that  they  left  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, and  they  never  admitted  that  they  did.  They 
did  say  that,  having  come  to  New  England,  they 
could  and  would  establish  the  government  of  their 
own  churches  as  they  chose.  It  was  this  they  had 
come  for,  and  from  the  very  first  moment  they 
asserted  and  maintained  the  privilege. 

There  are  three  or  four  separate  statements  as  to 
the  extremity  of  the  famine  which  was  working  in 
upon  them  before  the  arrival  of  the  Lion.  Mather 
says,  writing  after  two  generations,  that  Mrs.  Win- 
throp  was  putting  in  the  oven  the  last  loaves  of 
bread  when  it  was  announced  that  the  Lion  was 
below.  The  Charlestown  records  say  that  a  fast 
day  had  been  proclaimed.  It  is  this  fast  which  was 
changed  into  a  thanksgiving  on  the  twenty-second 
of  February,  in  gratitude  for  the  ship's  arrival. 
Richard  Clapp,  with  the  advantage  of  forty  years  for 
the  decoration  of  the  story,  says  it  was  not  accounted 
a  strange  thing  in  those  days  to  drink  water  and 
to  eat  samp  or  hominy  without  butter  and  milk. 
"  Indeed,  it  would  have  been  a  strange  thing  to  see 
a  piece  of  roast  beef  or  mutton  or  veal,  though  it 


74  THE  FIRST  WINTER. 

was  not  long  before  there  was  roast  goat."  Edward 
Johnson  was  an  eye-witness,  but  did  not  write  till 
afterwards.  He  says  "  the  women,  once  a  day,  as  the 
tide  gave  way,  resorted  to 'the  mussel  and  clam  banks 
(which  are  fish  as  big  as  small  mussels)  where  they 
daily  gathered  their  families'  food.  Quoth  one, 
'  My  husband  hath  travelled  as  far  as  Plymouth, 
(which  is  near  forty  miles)  and  hath  with  great  toil 
brought  a  little  corn  home  with  him,  and  before 
that  is  spent  the  Lord  will  assuredly  provide.' 
Quoth  another,  '  Our  last  peck  of  meal  is  now  in  the 
oven  at  home,  baking,  and  many  of  our  godly  neigh- 
bors have  already  spent  all ;  and  we  owe  one  loaf  of 
that  little  we  have.'  Then  spake  another,  '  My 
husband  hath  ventured  himself  among  the  Indians 
for  corn,  and  can  get  none.  Also  our  honored  gov- 
ernor hath  distributed  his  plentifully.  A  day  or  two 
more  will  put  an  end  to  his  store,  and  all  the  rest. 
And  yet  methinks  our  children  are  as  cheerful,  fat 
and  lusty  with  feeding  upon  these  mussels,  clams,  and 
other  fish,  as  they  were  in  England  with  their  fill  of 
bread  ;  which  makes  me  cheerful  in  the  Lord's  pro- 
viding for  us,  being  further  confirmed  by  the  exhor- 
tation of  our  pastor  to  trust  the  Lord  with  providing 
for  us,  whose  is  the  earth  and  the  fullness  thereof.' 
And  as  they  were  encouraging  one  another  they 
lifted  up  their  eyes  and  saw  two  ships  coming  in, 
and  presently  this  news  came  to  their  ears,  that  they 
were  come  from  Ireland  full  of  victuals." 

This    is  a  good  illustration  of   the  growth  of  a 
tradition.     For  there  was  but  one  ship. 


CHAPTER   VI. 

BOSTOX    COMMON7"    AND    FOKT    HILL. 

I  DO  not  think  that  most  children  in  Boston  know 
their  Common  as  well,  or  care  for  it  as  much, 
as  I  did  when  I  was  a  boy.  Nobody  then  made  any 
objection  to  our  playing  upon  the  grass  or  sitting 
upon  it ;  and  for  one,  I  was  there  so  much,  between 
the  time  when  I  was  five  years  old  and  the  time 
when  I  was  twenty-five,  that  I  doubt  if  there  is  a 
square  yard  of  its  surface  on  which  I  have  not  at 
some  time  stepped  or  sat  or  lain  down.  The  Common 
of  to-day  is  a  collection  of  walks,  shaded  by  trees, 
with  grass-plots  between.  Everybody  is  requested 
to  keep  off  these  grass-plots ;  and  most  people  do. 
The  Common  of  my  boyhood  was  a  large  pasture, 
with  rows  of  elms  on  the  malls  around  it,  with  the 
"  great  elm "  standing  where  its  successor  stands, 
and  one  fine,  large  willow-tree  near  the  "  Frog 
Pond."  Other  trees  there  were  none.  It  was,  there- 
fore, a  good  place  for  cows,  a  good  place  for  military 
training,  and  a  particularly  good  place  for  boys. 
There  were  no  restrictions  on  them  in  the  Common  ; 
and  as  there  was  but  one  policeman  in  the  town  of 
Boston,  the  restrictions  would  not  have  been  enforced, 
had  there  been  any.  As  soon  as  the  frost  was  enough 


76        BOSTON  COMMON  AND   FORT  HILL. 

out  of  the  ground  in  the  spring,  we  played  marbles 
in  the  malls  ;  soon  after  we  ranged  with  bows  and 
arrows  over  the  whole  space  ;  we  played  base-ball  and 
foot-ball  where  we  chose  and  when  we  chose.  Under 
the  pretense  of  carrying  imaginary  mails,  we  drove  our 
hoops  from  station  to  station,  where  we  had  fixed! 
post-offices,  from  each  of  which,  from  day  to  day,  the 
tiny  newspapers  went  forward,  till,  at  the  end  of  a 
fortnight  perhaps,  they  had  made  the  circuit  of  the 
four  malls  and  had  returned,  like  a  metaphysical 
proposition,  to  the  place  they  started  from.  Above 
all,  the  Common  was  fitted  for  the  flying  of  kites ; 
and  I  observe  with  regret  that,  since  the  Common 
was  planted  with  trees,  the  science  of  kite-flying, 
which  is  a  science,  is  lost  to  the  boys  of  Boston,  and 
largely  to  those  of  New  England. 

Two  hundred  and  sixty-one  years  ago,  the  Common 
was  a  rougher  pasture  and  less  attractive  to  the 
cows,  had  there  been  any,  than  the  open  field  which 
I  have  described. 

Ann  Pollard,  a  jolly,  active  girl  of  ten  years  old, 
ranged  over  it  in  a  frolic  in  the  summer  of  1630, 
picked  and  ate  blueberries  from  the  bushes  which 
were  growing  there,  and,  very  likely,  sat  and  rested 
herself  under  the  shade  of  the  great  tree,  which  was 
already  called  the  "  old  elm "  ;  or,  perhaps,  on  the 
Wishing  Stone,  which  then  had  not  received  its 
name.  The  Wishing  Stone  was  a  great  rock,  a  little 
below  the  Walnut  Street  gate,  which  was,  alas ! 
blasted  and  carried  away,  as  if  it  had  been  a  vulgar 
stone,  to  make  the  curbstone  which  is  now  around 


BOSTON  COMMON  AND   FORT  HILL.      77 

the  Frog  Pond.  That  rock  and  many  others  were 
scattered  over  the  Common,  where  you  would  now 
find  it  hard  to  pick  up  a  pebble  to  throw  into  the 
pond.  There  were  frogs  in  the  pond,  and  most 
likely  musk-rats  as  well.  And  I  dare  say  the  young- 
sters of  that  day  were  rewarded  if  they  lay  in  wait 
on  the  hill  sometimes  for  a  tired  duck  or  wild  goose 
or  wandering  plover. 

It  is  on  this  ragged,  jagged,  open  hillside  that  this 
little  story  begins,  a  little  after  noon  on  a  February 
day.  Two  or  three  large  boys  are  watching  a  fire 
just  above  the  Frog  Pond  ;  and  another,  on  the  hill 
above,  is  making  signals  to  some  people  on  the  ice 
in  the  Back  Bay  below. 

"  Take  my  hatchet,  Cephas,  and  run  yonder  quickly, 
and  bring  us  two  or  three  more  of  those  cedars.  They 
shall  not  say  we  left  them  to  cut  the  wood,  when  they 
have  gone  so  far  for  the  clams." 

Cephas  went  off  willingly  enough,  but  came  back, 
in  a  moment,  bringing  with  him  Adoniram,  who,  to 
the  evident  joy  of  the  others,  carried  a  little  leather 
satchel. 

"And  what  hast  thou  brought?"  cried  Tom 
Cradock,  the  leader  of  the  gang.  "  What  hast  thou 
brought  ?  We  have  three  flounders  ready  to  bake 
when  the  stones  are  hot  enough,  and  Roger  and 
Hiram  are  coming  up  yonder,  with  two  redskins, 
who  know  a  good  place  for  clams.  Micah,  here,  hns 
filled  both  pipkins  from  a'hole  in  the  ice.  My  father 
has  given  me  salt "  [and  he  showed  it  in  two  large 
clam  shells].  "  Fitz  John  brought  up  two  lobsters, 


78      BOSTON  COMMON  AND   FORT  HILL. 

and  we  have  them  in  the  pot.  But  I  tell  thee  I  tire 
of  sea-food ;  and  I  said  to  Cephas  that  I  hoped  thy 
mother  had  one  biscuit  left." 

The  boy  laughed  good-naturedly  enough,  but  said, 
in  an  affected  tone  of  lamentation  : 

"  Not  a  biscuit  to-day  between  the  Ferry  and  the 
Frog  Pond  here.  My  mother  has  not  seen  one  for  a 
week.  Why,  I  know  that  Mrs.  Winthrop  put  her 
last  bread  in  the  oven  yesterday.  Nathan  Miller 
told  me  that,  and  he  made  the  oven  fire.  Nay," 
he  said,  more  seriously,  "  Goodman  Griffith  said  to 
my  father  last  night,  that,  next  week  of  Thursday, 
there  was  to  be  a  day  of  Fasting  and  Prayer  in  all 
the  settlements,  to  turn  away  wrath.  That  day  thee 
will  eat  not  even  lobsters  nor  clams." 

"  If  only  another  wild  goose  would  pass  over  ! " 
said  the  bigger  boy,  looking  for  the  fiftieth  time 
upward  and  around,  so  as  to  scan  the  whole  of  the 
pitiless  clear  blue  arch  which  was  over  them.  He 
was  wholly  ignorant  that  the  stray  bird  he  had  shot 
there  three  months  before,  was  a  late,  exceptional 
straggler,  and  that  he  might  as  well  expect  a  visible 
angel  from  the  seventh  heaven  as  such  another  strag- 
gler now.  "  But  what  has  thee  got,  if  thee  has  no 
biscuits  ?  " 

"  See  here,"  said  the  smaller  boy  eagerly,  "  the  red- 
skin, Charles  King,  told  me  how  to  find  them  ;  and 
he  will  be  here  in  a  few  minutes  with  more.  I  gave 
him  my  old  leather  cap,  last  night,  and  we  started 
before  day-break,  and  went  —  oh  !  ever  so  far,  an 
hour's  tramp  the  other  side  of  the  ruin  or  more,  to 


BOSTON  COMMON  AND  FORT  HILL.       79 

the  place  where  he  had  hidden  them  —  oh  !  long 
ago.  It  was  in  under  a  rock,  and  there  were  a  great 
lot  of  them,  more  than  we  could  bring.  And  he  had 
crowded  in  leaves  and  sticks,  for  fear  that  they 
should  freeze." 

And  the  eager  boy  produced  a  handful  of  dirty 
little  roots,  of  the  shape  of  long  nuts,  which  were  the 
treasures  which  had  been  so  carefully  husbanded. 

"  Charles  King  said  that  he  found  the  place  one 
day  when  they  were  fishing,  and  he  knew  they  would 
want  them  sometime,  and  so  he  hid  them  there." 

Tom  Cradock  looked  incredulously  at  the  little 
roots,  and  tried  one  between  hi*  teeth,  which  failed 
to  close  upon  it.  He  made  a  wry  face  as  he  took  it 
away. 

"  But  they  are  to  be  baked !  They  are  to  be 
baked  !  "  said  the  other,  "  and  we  shall  have  enough. 
I  think  we  will  put  in  some  with  the  lobsters." 
And  his  eye  rested  with  satisfaction  on  the  iron  pot 
which  John  Freeman  was  hanging  over  the  fire. 

Charles  King,  the  Indian  boy,  now  slowly  ap- 
proached, with  a  heavy  basket  slung  on  his  back. 
He  readily  assented  to  trying  the  new  experiment  of 
boiling  ;  and,  while  the  boys  were  engaged  in  a 
rough  way  in  washing  the  roots,  the  other  party 
from  the  bay  joined  them,  loaded  down,  as  they  had 
expected,  with  baskets  of  clams.  They  needed  very 
little  time  to  rake  the  embers  off  from  a  stone  floor 
which  had  been  used  for  this  purpose  by  generation 
upon  generation  of  the  Indian  boys,  and  their  fathers 
long  before  them,  and  little  more  time  to  pile  up  the 


80      BOSTON  COMMON  AND   FORT  HILL. 

clams,  the  ground  nuts,  and  the  fish,  and  to  cover 
them  with  sea-weed.  Silas  Moody  was  then  left  to 
watch  the  smaller  fire,  over  which  three  sticks  sup- 
ported the  iron  kettle,  and  the  other  boys,  as  by 
agreement,  went  down  from  the  hill  upon  the  lower 
ground,  for  play.  Redskins  and  white  skins,  with 
one  or  two  allies  who  had  come  up  from  the  village, 
there  were  fourteen  in  all. 

The  white  boys  had  begged  a  half-holiday,  or  had 
taken  it  without  begging.  The  Indian  boys  knew 
nothing  of  work  days  or  of  holidays ;  it  was  all  one  to 
them.  As  their  great  countryman  said,  a  century 
after,  "  They  had  fill  the  time  there  was."  If  they 
said  they  would  go  to  work,  they  meant  only  they 
would  go,  if  they  chose,  when  the  time  came  ;  if 
they  said  they  would  go  to  play,  it  was  with  the 
same  implied  condition.  On  this  occasion  the  day 
was  fine,  the  temptation  to  beat  the  English  boys  in 
playing  ball  was  an  inducement,  and  in  the  strag- 
gling manner  which  has  been  described,  they  had 
arrived  at  the  place  of  rendezvous.  A  part  of  the 
vague  promise  was  that  they  were  to  teach  the 
English  boys  their  national  game,  which  we  call 
La  Crosse  ;  and  they  had  come  with  nice  bats,  newly 
made  of  deer's  sinews,  for  the  occasion.  The  level 
surface  of  the  frozen  Frog  Pond  was  the  best  place 
they  could  find  for  the  beginning  of  the  encounter. 
They  divided  themselves  into  two  parties,  each  party 
took  four  or  five  English  allies,  and  so  the  game 
began.  Indian  boys  and  English  boys  spoke  to  each 
other  only  with  the  greatest  difficulty.  Such  in- 


BOSTON  COMMON  AND   FORT  HILL.      81 

structions  as  were  given,  were  given  much  more  by 
gestures  than  by  words.  But  both  parties  were 
good-natured.  It  was  many  weeks  since  the  English 
boys  had  enjoyed  a  holiday  so  definitely  appointed; 
and  the  biggest  of  them,  quick  of  eye  and  of  foot, 
began  to  catch  the  trick  of  the  game,  while  all  of 
them  entered  into  its  spirit.  I  need  not  say  that  no 
boy  took  much  note  of  time.  There  was  then  no 
Park  Street  clock  to  tell  any  one  that  dinner  was 
waiting,  if  his  appetite  failed  to  serve  him  as  a 
reminder. 

But  there  was  reason  enough  why  all  parties 
should  be  hungry;  and,  before  many  goals  had  been 
lost  and  won,  a  cry  from  the  two  boys  who  were 
taking  their  turns  of  duty  at  the  fire,  called  the 
whole  party  in.  Dinner  was  to  be  served  under  the 
lee  of  a  great  bowlder,  which  was  blasted  away  long 
ago  to  make  the  foundation  of  some  house  or  barn. 
A  great  pile  of  brushwood,  running  out  at  right 
angles  from  the  stone,  extended  the  cover  from  the 
wind,  a  deep  bed  of  hemlock  and  cedar  branches 
made  a  comfortable  enough  floor  to  lie  upon,  and 
the  low  February  sun  lay  warmly  on  the  company. 
One  or  two  dirty  bear-skins  had  been  brought  by  the 
Indian  boys,  and  three  or  four  blankets  of  English 
weaving,  not  much  cleaner,  added  to  the  luxury  of 
the  occasion.  The  plates  were  slate  stones  and 
clam-shells.  Two  or  three  Sheffield  whittles  were 
made  common  property  for  knives,  and  fingers 
served  for  forks.  None  of  the  company  was  fastid- 
ious; all  were  hungry  and  all  were  good-natured; 


82      BOSTON  COMMON  AND  FORT  HILL. 

the  provision  was  ample  ;  and  in  their  deep  carous- 
ings  from  flagons  more  than  once  refilled  with  the 
Frog  Pond  water,  which  they  drew  through  the  ice 
and  in  their  simple  jest  called  "  Adam's  Ale,"  there 
was  never  a  headache  nor  a  quarrel.  The  meal, 
which  had  no  name,  was  soon  dispatched  ;  the  rem- 
nants were  left  for  birds  or  for  woodchucks,  and  the 
whole  company  rose,  like  Greek  heroes,  refreshed, 
with  a  readiness  which  would  have  frightened  a 
doctor  of  our  day,  to  resume  their  violent  exercise, 
as  if  Nature  needed  neither  strength  nor  time  for 
digestion. 

As  the  little  boys  were  picking  the  La  Crosse  bats 
from  the  pile  where  they  had  been  stacked,  Tom 
Cradock,  who  was  the  evident  leader  of  the  party, 
said  gayly : 

"  No  !  let  them  lie  !  I  have  another  sport  for  the 
evening.  See  what  I  have  hidden  here." 

To  the  joy  of  the  others  he  produced,  from  a 
secret  place  in  the  brush-heap,  a  limp  bladder  and  the 
well-known  cover  of  a  foot-ball  made  from  the  best 
Cordovan  leather. 

In  an  instant  more  he  had  blown  the  bladder  to  a 
full  sphere,  and  Cephas,  with  a  bit  of  string  from 
the  never-failing  pocket  of  his  jerkin,  tied  fast  the 
opening. 

"  You've  shown  us  one  of  your  games,  we  will 
show  you  one  of  ours,"  he  said  to  one  of  the  Indian 
boys,  who  looked  on  with  quiet  admiration.  "  Micah, 
you  shall  be  captain  on  that  side.  I  will  be  captain 
of  ours.  Don't  thee  take  all  the  best  lads.  Take 


J30STON  COMMON  AND  FORT  HILL.       83 

thy  fair  half.  Only  remember,"  he  said,  laughing, 
"  that  I  am  a  match  for  any  three  of  you." 

"  That  will  do  very  well,"  said  the  other,  good- 
naturedly.  "  As  I  count  three  on  our  side,  that  will 
give  us  each  an  even  ten.  When  we  come  on  pur- 
pose, we  will  bring  more  lads.  But  we  will  not 
mind  now,  seeing  we  have  the  best  of  the  town." 

And  so  saying,  he  drew  off  his  half  of  the  party, 
giving  them  the  best  instructions  he  could  by  gest- 
ures and  loud  words ;  and  then,  with  a  final  confer- 
ence with  Tom  Cradock,  determined  roughly  what 
should  be  goals  and  bounds. 

The  fortunes  of  the  games,  played  with  not  un- 
natural blunders  on  both  sides,  might  have  taken  as 
long  for  description  as  I  have  known  the  story  of 
some  Indian  ball  games  —  namely,  several  hours  of 
long  and  rapid  narration.  But  so  soon  as  the  hill 
party  warmed  to  their  work,  in  one  bold  rush  they 
drove  the  ball  southward  into  a  little  clump  of  savin- 
trees,  all  crowded  by  a  close  growth  of  blackberry 
vines  and  other  briers ;  and,  to  the  amazement  of  all 
parties,  defenders  and  pursuers,  a  red  fox,  who  was 
in  cover  there,  broke  away,  and  fled  in  the  direction 
toward  which  the  flying  ball  had  pointed. 

The  crew  of  boys  forgot  the  ball  on  the  instant, 
at  the  sight  of  nobler  game.  There  was  no  hope 
that  they  could  draw  dog  or  man  to  help  in  the 
pursuit  from  the  distant  hamlet.  It  was  quite  sure 
that  the  fox  would  outrun  the  swiftest  of  them  in 
three  minutes ;  but  they  all  joined  none  the  less 
gallantly  in  pursuit.  It  was  easy  enough  to  track 


84       BOSTON  COMMON  AND  FORT  HILL. 

him  across  the  long,  low  treeless  flat,  where  is  now 
Tremont  Street  and  the  Boston  and  Globe  Theaters. 
Indeed,  it  seemed  to  those  foremost  in  the  chase, 
that  a  block  of  ice,  hurled  by  one  of  the  Indian  boys, 
must  have  disabled  him  in  some  degree  ;  for  they 
fancied  that  he  flagged  in  his  running.  He  crossed 
the  country  trail  far  in  advance  of  them.  But  they 
were  quite  sure  that  he  only  ran  to  cover  by  the 
little  pond  which  they  knew  well  —  near  where  the 
street  cars  now  turn  into  Harrison  Avenue  —  and, 
in  a  straggling  line,  panting  for  breath,  the  leaders 
followed  him  thither.  The  smaller  boys,  to  their 
regret  for  the  rest  of  their  lives,  returned  to  their 
fire  on  the  Common. 

But  no  stoning,  nor  shouting,  nor  poking  with 
sticks,  would  drive  the  fox  from  the  close  covert  he 
had  chosen.  If  he  were  there,  he  meant  to  stay 
there.  The  boys  were  retiring,  crest-fallen  with  their 
failure,  when  a  happy  thought  struck  their  cheery 
leader. 

"  It  was  the  ball  that  started  him.  Try  the 
ball  again,  Micah !  Let  fly  right  in  among  the 
willows !  " 

And  Micah  camped  the  foot-ball,  as  he  would 
have  said,  high  in  the  air,  so  that  it  fell,  as  if  from 
heaven  itself,  among  the  trees. 

The  poor,  lame,  frightened  beast,  who  knew  enough 
to  keep  still  when  noisy  men,  or  noisier  boys,  threat- 
ened him,  was  not  proof,  it  seemed,  to  supernatural 
terror.  He  left  cover  again  ;  and,  though  he  left 
on  the  side  away  from  his  pursuers,  they  soon  saw 


BOSTON  COMMON  AND  FORT  HILL.       85 

him  upon  the  white  snow,  over  which,  with  evident 
pain,  he  was  running  to  the  edge  of  the  water. 

The  boys  knew  no  mercy.  They  had  gained  their 
breath,  and  started  again  in  the  well-nigh  hopeless 
pursuit.  Hopeless,  because  he  was  far  ahead  of 
them,  they  had  only  their  eyes  to  track  him  with, 
and  they  were  quite  as  tired  as  he  was. 

But  no  boy  flagged.  Streets  were  none,  nor  even 
lanes  or  byways  then.  But,  if  they  had  left  their 
track  upon  the  snow,  and  men  had  afterward  made 
streets  to  preserve  it,  you  would  say  that  they  ran 
down  Essex  Street  a  little  way,  crossed  to  Bedford 
Street,  could  see  the  tired  beast  turning  inland  from 
the  water,  and  making  toward  the  rising  ground  of 
Fort  Hill,  and  that  there  they  lost  him  behind 
Goodman  Rogers's  woodpile.  At  the  woodpile  they 
all  gathered,  the  tallest  first,  and  the  laggards  later; 
but  no  fox  was  there.  On  some  snow  which  had 
not  been  trodden  could  be  seen  his  footprints,  plain 
enough  to  show  that  they  had  tracked  him  rightly 
so  far.  But  ho  re  he  had  disappeared. 

"  Stay  here  and  watch,  Micah.  Stay  here,  all  of 
you  !  "  cried  the  impetuous  Cradock.  "And  I  will 
take  this  savage  with  me  to  the  top  of  the  hill ;  and 
perhaps  we  can  see  him.  Ye  can  all  hear  me  shout 
from  there."  As  if  well-nigh  the  whole  town  could 
not  hear  Tom  Cradock's  shout  if  he  chose. 

He  called  the  Indian  a  savage,  without  the  slight- 
est thought  of  offense  —  which,  indeed,  as  the  other 
could  not  understand  five  words  he  spoke,  it  would 
be  hard  to  give  in  language.  Savage  was  simply 


86      BQSTON  COMMON  AND   FORT  HILL, 

his  name.  On  the  instant,  the  breathless  fellows 
dashed  up  the  hill.  The  Indian  knew  very  well 
why  they  went. 

But  not  a  sign  of  their  victim !  Snow,  ice,  brown 
grass,  or  tall  reeds  in  the  marshes  —  places  enough 
where  a  fox  might  hide  —  but  no  sign  of  a  poor 
lame  fox  crawling  from  one  of  these  coverts  to 
another.  The  Indian  gave  up  the  quest  after  one 
minute's  careful,  silent  scrutiny,  with  one  or  two 
Uyhs  in  the  bottom  of  his  throat,  and  the  one  word, 
"bad-bad"  —  the  first  word  that  he  had  learned  in 
his  intercourse  with  the  strangers. 

The  day  was  still  cloudless.  The  sun  was  just 
going  down.  The  savage  turned  from  the  scrutiny 
of  the  shore  to  look  seaward.  It  seemed  as  if  he 
would  not  and  could  not  let  anything  escape  him, 
now  he  was  somewhere  where  so  much  could  be 
seen.  He  turned  slowly,  scanning  island  after  island 
in  the  bay.  They  stood  brown  against  the  white 
ice  and  snow ;  but  the  tide  had  so  broken  the  harbor 
ice  that  it  had  generally  drifted  to  sea,  and  a  long 
channel,  deep  blue,  marked  the  way  of  the  tide  and 
river  water  from  their  feet  to  the  far  horizon. 

The  Indian  boy  was  wholly  grave  and  impassive 
as  he  turned  from  point  to  point;  but  when  he 
turned  full  east,  he  fairly  leaped  and  screamed. 

"  What  is  it,  Charles  ?  "  cried  the  other,  who  was 
now  the  graver  of  the  two. 

The  redskin,  who  had  in  derision  been  nicknamed 
with  the  name  of  King  and  Charles,  only  answered, 
by  holding  the  other,  and  pointing,  with  a  short 


BOSTON  COMMON  AND  FORT  HILL.      87 

reed  which  he  had  in  his  hand,  to  the  blue  horizon. 
Cradock  saw  nothing. 

"Chusett;  big  Chusett,"  said  the  Indian,  compel- 
ling the  other  to  see  the  hill  where  is  now  the  Blind 
Asylum. 

Tom  Cradock  knew  that  "  Chusett "  meant  "  hill," 
and  made  token  that  he  saw  it,  as  he  could  not  help 
doing. 

"  Chusett ;  little  Chusett,"  said  the  other,  leading 
his  eye  northward  from  the  near  hills,  on  the  horizon, 
where  Point  Alderton  stretches  up,  ten  miles  away. 

And  Tom  Cradock  saw  the  little  hill. 

Then  the  reed,  with  which  Charles  King  pointed, 
moved  slowly  northward,  and  stopped. 

"  Boat !  big  boat !  "  he  said,  in  triumph. 

Tom  could  not  make  it ;  did  not  make  it ;  but  the 
other  simply  said  :  "  Boat !  big  boat !  " 

Then  he  lay  on  the  ground  ;  he  adjusted  his  reed 
carefully  on  piles  of  stones.  He  bade  Tom  stoop 
also.  At  that  moment,  Micah  Dugan  came  up, 
wondering.  He  was  keener-sighted  than  Tom  was  ; 
he  knelt,  and  ranged  over  the  reed,  arid  cried  :  "  A 
sail !  a  sail !  He  is  right."  And  this  time  Tom 
Cradock  saw  the  welcome  sail. 

It  was  many  months  since  such  a  sight  had  been 
seen  in  the  bay. 

A  whoop  and  cry  brought  up  the  other  lads  from 
the  woodpile.  All  must  share  the  wonder  and  the 
joy.  Then  came  the  eager  wish  to  tell  the  news. 
Yet  there  was  an  anxious  feeling  that,  if  a  watch 
were  not  kept  upon  the  hill,  the  prize  might  vanish. 


88      BOSTON  COMMON  AND  FORT  HILL. 

Tom  Cradock  bade  the  others  wait  for  a  moment, 
till  he  could  summon  the  Governor,  whose  home  lay 
below  them,  not  far  away. 

In  five  minutes  he  was  in  the  kind  magistrate's 
presence,  and  with  due  decorum  told  his  story.  In 
five  minutes  more,  the  great  man,  not  cumbered  by 
his  guard,  as  he  would  have  been  on  an  occasion  of 
ceremony,  was  on  the  hill.  He  had  no  "perspective 
glass."  Such  things  were  not  known.  But  ten 
minutes  had  brought  the  ship  a  mile  nearer  the 
town.  Every  sail  was  in  sight  011  every  mast,  and 
the  anxious  Governor  of  an  infant  State  knew  that 
his  fears  might  end ;  that  succor  was  at  hand. 

"  Let  us  pray  !  "  he  said. 

And  as  the  rough  boys  stood  reverently  and 
silently  around  him,  with  their  eyes  cast  upon  the 
ground,  the  Governor  poured  out  his  heart  in  grati- 
tude to  God. 

Then,  and  not  till  then,  did  the  boys  rush  to  their 
homes,  with  the  glad  news  that  relief  had  come. 

Neither  boy  nor  man  knew  what  the  ship  was,  nor 
who  was  her  captain.  But,  clearly,  she  was  heavily- 
freighted.  She  was  no  belated  fisherman  nor  dis- 
patch boat  from  the  Old  Colony.  The  Governor 
hoped  it  might  be  his  old  friend,  Pearce,  in  the 
Lyon,  for  whose  return  he  had  once  and  again 
plead  earnestly  with  Almighty  God. 

And  good  Captain  Pearce,  in  the  Lyon,  it 
proved  to  be.  Long  after  nightfall,  eager  watch- 
men on  the  shore  heard  the  plash  of  oars,  and  Cap- 
tain Pearce  himself  hailed  them  as  he  drew  near 


BOSTON  COMMON  AND  FORT  HILL.      89 

their  landing  place.  With  him  in  the  boat  were 
Roger  Williams,  John  Perkins  and  Robert  Hale. 

In  his  cargo  were  thirty-four  hogsheads  of  \vheat- 
flour,  four  hogsheads  of  oatmeal,  four  of  beef  and 
pork,  fifteen  of  peas,  with  cheese,  and  butter,  and 
suet.  Just  what  the  discouraged  people  needed  to 
make  a  feast  from  the  savage  stores  on  which  they 
had  been  feeding. 

And  Winthrop,  who  with  his  own  grim  humor  had 
taught  people  to  thank  God  for  the  treasures  hid  in 
the  sand,  before  they  dined  on  clam  chowder,  now 
called  his  council  together,  and  they  issued  the  first 
"  Proclamation  for  Thanksgiving." 

They  had  ordered  a  day  of  Fasting  and  Humilia- 
tion. They  changed  it  to  a  day  of  Thanksgiving 
and  Praise. 

And  then  and  thus,  for  the  Colony  of  the  Bay,  did 
Thanksgiving  Day  begin. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

A    STUDY    OF    AXNE    HUTCHINSON. 

IT  is  clear  enough  that,  in  1631,  after  the  hard- 
ships of  the  first  winter  in  Massachusetts,  a  cer- 
tain depression  of  feeling  existed  among  the  friends 
of  the  colony  in  England,  as  it  certainly  existed  in 
the  colony  itself.  The  emigration  of  that  year  is 
very  small.  But  in  the  next  year  the  English  Puri- 
tans began  to  look  again  with  favor  on  New  Eng- 
land, and  year  by  year  the  arrivals  were  larger  and 
larger.  In  1634  some  gentlemen  of  rank  began  to 
correspond  with  Winthrop.  They  were  on  the  lib- 
eral line  in  religion,  but  they  wanted  to  preserve  the 
privileges  of  English  noblemen,  and  the  correspond- 
ence is  curious,  as  they  ask  how  largely  such  privi- 
leges would  be  respected,  and  as  the  assistants,  who 
have  already  learned  a  little  of  the  disposition  of  a 
democracy,  courteously  reply.  Of  this  movement, 
the  principal  visible  result  which  has  been  left  in 
history  was  the  settlement  made  in  the  Connecticut 
River,  of  which  the  younger  Winthrop  became  the 
chief.  Lord  Say-and-Seal,  Lord  Brooke,  and  other 
gentlemen,  finally  made  their  establishment  there. 
But  most  of  the  settlers  who  were  to  go  there 
arrived  first  in  Massachusetts  Bay,  and  the  large 

90 


A    STUDY  OF  ANNE  HUTC1IIN80N.         91 

emigration  of  1634  and  1635  must  be  considered  as 
having  been  affected  considerably  by  the  interest  of 
those  who  eventually  established  the  colony  of  Con- 
necticut. Among  others  who  came  over  on  this  new 
tide  of  enthusiasm  was  Henry  Vane,  the  same  who 
was  afterwards  executed,  the  same  who  has  received 
his  highest  honor  from  Milton's  pen : 


Vane,  young  in  years,  but  in  sage  counsel  old, 

Than  whom  a  better  senator  ne'er  held 

The  helm  of  Rome,  when  gowns,  not  arms,  repelled, 
The  fierce  Epirot  and  the  African  bold  ; 
Whether  to  settle  peace,  or  to  unfold 

The  drift  of  hollow  states  hard  to  be  spell'd, 

Then  to  advise  how  war  may,  best  upheld, 
Move  by  her  two  main  nerves,  iron  and  gold, 
In  all  her  equipage ;  besides  to  know 

Both  spiritual  power  and  civil,  what  each  means, 

What  severs  each,  them  hast  learned,  which  few  have  done  : 
The  bounds  of  either  sword  to  thee  we  owe ; 

Therefore,  on  thy  firm  hand  Religion  leans 

In  peace,  and  reckons  thee  her  eldest  son. 


Yane  was  only  twenty-four  years  of  age.  His 
father's  name  was  known  and  honored  among  the 
Puritans ;  his  arrival  itself  showed  that  the  colony 
was  not  to  be  forgotten  by  distinguished  people  "  at 
home,"  and  his  personal  bearing  soon  won  enthusi- 
astic support.  This  showed  itself  in  his  election  as 
governor  at  the  first  annual  meeting  after  his 
arrival ;  an  election  which,  naturally  enough,  did 
not  meet  with  much  favor  from  Winthrop,  whom  he 
displaced,  and  perhaps  not  from  most  of  the  other 
magistrates,  who  had  pulled  through  the  hard  work 
of  the  beginning. 


92        A    STUDY  OF  ANNE  HUTCHINSON. 

To  this  hour  nothing  is  so  disagreeable  to  an 
American  as  to  receive  advice  from  a  person  who 
has  just  arrived  from  England.  Nothing  is  so  cer- 
tain, on  the  other  hand,  as  that  the  persons  who 
have  just  arrived  from  England  are  most  eager  to 
offer  advice  to  the  persons  whom  they  find  speaking 
their  own  language  in  America.  Mr.  Lowell  has  de- 
scribed this  passion  of  theirs  with  admirable  humor 
in  his  paper  "On  a  Certain  Air  of  Condescension 
observable  in  all  Foreigners."  When  this  condescen- 
sion is  exhibited  by  a  Bohemian  or  other  stranger 
from  the  continent  of  Europe,  it  is  generally  uttered 
in  very  broken  English,  and  there  is  something  in 
the  humor  of  the  matter  which  helps  the  American 
who  hears  to  bear  it  tolerantly.  But  when  it  is 
addressed  to  him  in  his  own  language,  he  is  more 
apt  to  be  irritated.  He  does  not  take  it  kindly,  and 
the  resentment  which  he  expresses  in  return  is  apt 
to  be  much  more  than  the  occasion  demands ;  cer- 
tainly more  than  is  deserved  by  the  kind  feeling 
with  which  such  advice  is  generally  offered,  and 
the  blunt  unconsciousness  that  any  offense  is  given. 

The  terrible  quarrel  which  broke  the  little  State 
asunder  after  the  arrival  of  the  emigration  of  1634, 
is,  perhaps,  inexplicable.  But  it  is  probable  that 
there  was  in  it,  as  one  element  of  importance,  the 
indignation  which  those  felt  who  were  already  "  old 
settlers "  when  they  found  themselves  criticised  by 
the  new  arrivals.  An  unfortunate  phrase  of  Anne 
Hutchinson's  is  cited,  in  which  she  expressed  a  cer- 
tain dismay  as  she  saw  the  houses  which  surrounded 


A    STUDY  OF  ANNE  HUTCHINSON.         93 

her.  We  may  be  quite  sure  that  Englishmen  of  good 
condition,  landing  together,  could  not  help  telling 
those  who  came  before  what  they  should  have  done. 
If  they  did  not,  they  were  quite  unlike  any  English- 
men who  have  come  since  their  time. 

There  had  been  a  reaction  of  feeling  caused  by  the 
mortality  of  the  first  year,  and  the  discovery  that 
the  salt  marshes  and  rocky  hills  and  diluvial  gravels 
of  New  England  did  not  make  Paradise.  But  after 
this  passed  and  the  energy  of  "Winthrop,  Dudley,  and 
the  rest  of  the  "  six  hundred  "  had  made  a  foothold 
in  the  Bay,  this  new  wave  of  interest  swept  in  — 
moving,  as  has  been  seen,  some  people  of  distin- 
guished rank.  Now  the  six  hundred  who  had 
begun  the  work  needed  allies  and  needed  capital, 
but  even  then  the  answer  which  Winthrop  drafted 
to  the  gentlemen  who  wanted  to  come  over,  and 
asked  whether  their  dignity  would  be  respected, 
was  cautious  and  not  over-encouraging.  To  us, 
who  know  that  the  feudal  system  generally  goes 
to  pieces  in  about  half  an  hour  after  any  experi- 
menter lands  with  it  as  a  part  of  his  luggage,  the 
correspondence  is  amusing. 

It  is  in  the  westward  movement  of  this  second 
wave,  which  brought  Vane  in  1635,  that  there  came 
John  Cqtton,  who  had  long  been  solicited  to  come,. 
Anne  Hutchinson  and  her  husband,  John  Wheel- 
wright, her  brother,  Lothrop,  Symmes,  and  several 
other  preachers.  The  arrival  of  a  new  element  of 
such  social  distinction  moulded  the  history  of  the 


1)4        A    STUDY  OF  ANNE  HUTCHINSON. 

little  State  for  years.  Vane  did  not  arrive  till  two 
years  after  Cotton  and  a  year  after  Mrs.  Hutchinson, 
but  his  sympathies  were  with  them,  and  his  influence, 
for  the  time  that  he  lived  in  Boston,  was  thrown  on 
their  side  of  the  controversy  which  followed.  The 
reader  must  bear  in  mind  all  along  that  this  contro- 
versy, though  it  is  veiled  under  theological  names 
which  we  scarcely  understand,  and  carried  on  with 
an  unintelligible  fanaticism  on  both  sides,  was  at  the 
same  time  a  contest  between  Boston  and  the  other 
towns,  and  that  there  should  probably  be  traced  in 
it  a  distinct  element  of  the  jealousy  with  which  eight 
or  ten  country  towns  regarded  the  place  which  was 
already  assuming  the  airs  of  a  capital  city.  Cotton 
was  regarded  by  every  one  as  the  most  distin- 
guished of  the  preachers,  and  he  had  almost,  of 
course,  been  called  to  be  the  teacher  of  the  church 
in  Boston.  Until  his  arrival  that  church  had 
satisfied  itself  with  the  ministrations  of  a  pastor, 
John  Wilson.  The  name  "  Boston  "  had  been  given 
to  the  peninsula  with  some  reference  to  the  hope 
that  Cotton  would  arrive ;  but,  before  his  arrival, 
so  doubtful  were  its  prospects,  that  the  wits  of 
the  colony  already  named  it  "  Lost-town."  With 
Cotton's  arrival  in  1633  all  this  was  changed ;  every 
one  thronged  from  the  neighborhood  to  his  Thursday 
lecture  ;  his  known  eloquence  and  position  gave  him 
a  decided  lead  in  the  councils  of  the  infant  State, 
and  the  necessity,  which  was  almost  a  geographical 
necessity,  that  the  meetings  of  the  General  Court 
should  be  held  at  Boston,  began  to  mark  that  settle- 


A   STUDY  OF  ANNE  HUTCHINSON.        ,95 

ment  as  the  capital.  The  contest  between  Winthrop 
and  Dudley  about  building  at  Cambridge  may  be 
partly  referred,  perhaps,  to  the  rise  of  an  early 
jealousy. 

As  soon  as  Mrs.  Hutchinson  arrived  in  September, 
1634,  the  whole  church  of  Boston,  with  a  few  excep- 
tions, joined  themselves  to  her  with  enthusiasm.  It 
.seems  curious  now  to  speak  of  a  body  of  people  "join- 
ing themselves  "  to  a  woman  who  came  in  no  public 
capacity.  But  what  happened  was  that  Mrs.  Hutchin- 
son opened  what  we  should  call  religious  conferences 
—  first  for  women  only,  and  then  for  women  and 
men  together.  The  small  minority  consisted  of 
Winthrop  and  four  other  persons  in  the  church,  who 
allied  themselves  loyally  to  Wilson,  the  old  teacher 
of  the  church.  There  was  no  formal  quarrel  between 
Cotton  and  Wilson,  and  to  Wilson's  credit  it  ought 
to  be  said  that  he  has  left  on  record  no  trace  of  jeal- 
ousy separating  him  from  the  man  who  was  un- 
doubtedly his  intellectual  superior.  None  the  less 
is  it  sure  that  Cotton  was  a  very  eloquent  preacher, 
and  that  he  had  been  called  to  the  church  to  be  its 
teacher  while  the  more  humble  details  of  pastoral 
care  were  entrusted  to  Wilson  as  pastor.  It  need 
not  be  wondered  at,  then,  if  Wilson,  to  say  the  least, 
was  in  a  position  to  see  extravagances  in  Cotton's 
public  statements,  and  to  receive,  perhaps  with  more 
sympathy  than  was  wise,  complaints  which  any  per- 
son made,  regarding  such  extravagances.  As  Mrs. 
Hutchinson's  meetings  continued,  in  the  fervor  of 
her  religious  experience  and  the  enthusiasm  of  her 


96        A   STUDY   OF  ANNE  HUTCH1NSON. 

language,  admiring  Cotton  as  she  did,  to  such  an  ex- 
tent that  she  had  crossed  the  ocean  in  order  that  she 
might  hear  him  and  be  near  him,  it  is  certain  also 
that  she  permitted  herself  to  criticise  most  or  all  of 
the  preachers  of  the  Bay,  and  to  intimate  that  the 
gospel  which  they  proclaimed  was  not  so  satisfying 
as  that  of  Cotton,  and  as  that  which  she  herself 
could  interpret. 

Here  is  an  evident  bit  of  that  disposition  to  give 
advice  which,  as  has  been  said,  the  new  emigrant 
from  England  invariably  shows.  It  is  a  part  of  the 
law  of  the  instrument  and  must  be  accepted  as  such. 
It  is  equally  certain  that  in  the  colony  at  large  Anne 
Hutchinson  lost  favor  by  the  sweeping  criticisms 
which  she  made,  adverse  to  the  religious  statement 
which  she  found  well  received  in  the  community. 

From  a  period  very  soon  after  her  arrival  in  1634, 
till  she  wras  exiled  by  the  General  Court,  which  held  a 
special  meeting  to  hear  her  defense,  is  a  period  of 
about  three  years.  Of  the  discussions  of  that  period 
we  have  more  than  enough,  if  one  regard  their  pres- 
ent interest.  They  are  preserved  by  her  friends  arid 
by  her  enemies,  and  yet  from  them  all  it  would  be 
impossible  to-day  to  say  precisely  what  were  the 
theological  differences  which  were  involved. 

As  to  the  other  differences,  however,  it  is  clear 
enough  that  there  were  the  rough  "old  settlers," 
who  had  been  here  four  years  or  more,  with  their 
sunburned  faces,  their  well-worn  corduroys,  and  their 
hard  hands,  contrasting  with  the  new  comers,  who 
brought  the  last  sweet  word  of  Puritan  England; 


A   STUDY   OF  ANNE  HUTCHINSON.         97 

here  were  nine  or  ten  or  eleven  country  towns  all 
jealous  of  Boston ;  there  were  as  many  ministers 
who  found  people  would  go  off  on  Thursdays  to  hear 
Cotton. 

Such  were  the  sets  of  people,  ready  for  a  collision, 
in  life  where  there  was  so  little  to  talk  about  as  that 
of  the  little,  newly  founded  towns.  Of  the  ten  or 
twelve  towns  the  population  was  still  hardly  ten 
thousand.  In  larger  circles  of  social  life  the  colli- 
sion might  have  been  as  to  the  disposal  of  a  ribbon 
by  the  governor,  or  the  right  of  precedence  over  the 
lady  whom  Sir  Henry  Vane  handed  to  table.  But 
with  these  people  it  turned  on  the  gravest  points  of 
speculation,  and  beneath  smoke  and  fire  there  was  a 
heated  mass  of  profound  conviction,  so  intense  in  its 
fervor  that  it  is  impossible  to  speak  slightly  of  any 
word  of  the  controversy  which  followed.  That  con- 
troversy rent  the  little  State,  and  Boston  particularly^ 
to  their  foundations. 

First,  whether  sanctification  precedes  justification. 

Second,  whether  the  person  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
dwells  with  a  justified  person,  and 

Third,  how  far  a  devout  Christian  receives  from 
God  immediate  revelations  of  his  will. 

These  may  be  said  to  be  the  three  questions  be- 
tween Anne  Hutchinson  and  her  accusers,  as  they 
eventually  chose  to  state  them.  They  exiled  her 
from  their  colony  at  last  on  the  civil  charge  that  she 
disturbed  their  peace. 

Of  the  three  theological  questions  thus  proposed, 
not  by  herself,  but  by  her  accusers,  it  would  be  fair 


98        A    STUDY  OF  ANNE  HUT  CHIN  SON. 

to  say  that  none  of  our  readers  understands  either  of 
the  first  two,  unless  he  has  been  professionally 
trained  in  the  language  of  that  time.  Indeed,  it  is 
quite  clear  that  her  accusers  themselves  could  not 
quite  agree  what  they  held  —  on  subjects  where 
human  language  is,  from  its  very  origin,  unable  to 
make  precise  expression. 

With  regard  to  the  question  whether  the  person 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  resides  in  the  person  of  a  believer, 
both  parties  finally  determined  that  they  had  so  little 
Scripture  statement  for  their  discussion  that  it  was 
best  to  withdraw  it.  The  first  question,  whether 
"  sanctification "  is  an  evidence  of  "justification" 
proved  insoluble.  "  Mrs.  Hutchinson  was  understood 
to  maintain  the  negative ;  that  is,  she  was  regarded 
as  affirming  that  a  state  in  which  man  is  justified 
before  God  precedes  and  is  independent  of  his  obedi- 
ence to  the  law  of  holiness."  That  is  to  say,  she 
was  charged  with  holding  that  any  person  who 
proved  his  "justification"  by  referring  to  any  means 
of  outward  sanctification,  was  under  a  "  covenant  of 
works." 

Now  a  covenant  of  works  was  what  both  parties 
detested,  as  they  detested  any  violation  of  the  ten 
commandments. 

Our  own  time  is,  fortunately,  profoundly  indif- 
ferent to  such  niceties  of  expression.  The  questions 
involved  in  them  enter,  as  they  must  always  enter, 
into  the  inquiries  of  young  life.  And  every  person 
of  conscience  forms,  as  he  should  form,  his  own 
theory  as  to  the  relations  which  he  holds  to  God,  and 


A   STUDY   OF  ANNE  HUTCHINSON.         99 

which  God  holds  to  him.  But  the  world  has  come 
,so  fur  that  it  knows  that  human  language  is  inade- 
quate to  complete  statement  of  that  relation.  And, 
on  the  whole,  the  world  is  so  eager  to  see  and  find 
life  in  its  men  and  women,  that  it  does  not  analyze 
very  critically  the  verbal  statements  which  many  of 
them  make  as  to  the  origin  of  high  determination  in 
their  hearts.  But  the  people  around  Anne  Hutchin- 
son  had  not  wrought  out  the  experiments  which  have 
brought  the  world  of  the  nineteenth  century  to  this 
level  of  indifferences  or  toleration. 

It  seems  necessary  to  say  thus  much  of  the  lan- 
guage of  the  controversy  itself,  that  the  reader  may 
understand  the  steps  of  the  drama  —  sometimes 
amusing,  always  pathetic,  and  in  the  end  tragic  — 
which  wove  itself  around  the  life  of  Mrs.  Anne 
Hutchinson  in  Boston. 

She  was  the  daughter  of  a  Puritan  .minister  named 
Marbury.  She  married  William  Hutchinson  early 
in  the  century.  They  were  people  of  good  blood 
and  family,  and  lived  with  comfort  at  Alford,  about 
twenty-five  miles  from  Boston  in  Lincolnshire,  in 
England.  It  is  supposed  that  the  family  of  Mr. 
Hutchinson  was  connected  with  that  of  John  Hutch- 
inson, the  regicide.*  The  history  of  Boston  would 
never  have  shown  the  name  of  this  interesting  lady, 
nor  that  of  her  husband,  but  for  their  enthusiastic 
interest  in  the  preacher,  Cotton,  and  in  the  gospel 
as  he  proclaimed  it.  The  Hutchinsons  —  and  it  was 

*  But  Mr.  Savage  says  that  this  is  not  provi-d. 


100      A   STUDY  OF  ANNE  HUTCHINSON. 

a  large  family  group  —  were  among  a  very  consid- 
erable number  of  people  who  were  willing  to  go  to 
the  new  country  if  Cotton  came,  and  would  never 
have  come  if  he  had  not.  When  he  finally  crossed 
the  ocean,  in  1633,  in  the  ship  Griffin,  one  of 
his  fellow-passengers  was  Edward  Hutchinson,  the 
brother  of  Anne  Hutchinson's  husband.  Other 
Hutchinsons  had  preceded  them,  one  at  least  of 
that  name  being  in  the  original  emigration  with 
Winthrop.  In  the  ship  with  William  and  Anne 
Hutchinson  came  several  other  children.  They 
arrived  in  the  Griffin  on  the  eighteenth  of  Septem- 
ber, 1634.  William  Hutchinson  united  with  the  First 
Church  in  Boston  the  next  month.  There  was  some 
hesitation  about  the  admission  of  Anne  Hutchin- 
son, with  which  the  history  of  the  controversy 
properly  begins;  but  this  was  readily  adjusted. 
Mrs.  Hutchinson,  when  she  saw  the  meanness  of 
Boston  on  her  'arrival,  said  frankly,  that  she  should 
never  have  come  but  for  her  admiration  for  Mr. 
Cotton  and  her  wish  to  live  under  his  ministry  ;  but 
it  does  not  appear  that  any  immediate  ill-feeling 
resulted  from  this  expression  or  from  the  doubts 
which  delayed  her  admission  into  the  church.  She 
made  herself  of  use  in  the  little  town;  it  would 
seem  as  if  their  property  was  sufficient  for  them 
to  live  with  comfort  and  maintain  a  cordial  hospital- 
ity. Mrs.  Hutchinson  soon  became  a  favorite  among 
the  women,  and  finding  that  there  was  nothing  of 
what  we  should  now  call  "  mothers'  meetings  "  or  a 
woman's  conference,  she  instituted  in  her  own  house 


A   STUDY  OF  ANNE  HUTCH1NSON.       101 

such  a  religious  gathering  for  her  own  sex.  There 
had  been  similar  clubs  of  men  before,  and  such  clubs 
existed  for  more  than  a  century.  Mrs.  Hutchinson's 
class  or  club  was  popular  ;  it  was  conducted  with 
spirit,  and  clearly  enough  it  became  one  of  the  in- 
teresting reunions  of  Boston. 

Her  biographers  have  touched  on  the  question 
whether  personal  beauty  was  one  of  the  charms 
which  rendered  her  so  attractive.  Dr.  Ellis  says, 
with  very  keen  observation,  that,  as  no  reference 
is  made  to  this  among  the  writers  on  either  side,  it 
may  be  inferred  that  she  was  not  a  beautiful  woman. 
But  against  this  ingenious  remark,  it  is  to  be  ob- 
served that  very  remarkable  personal  beauty  has  for 
at  least  a  century  past  been  evident  in  the  immedi- 
ate descendants  of  her  blood. 

There  were  two  of  her  meetings  held  every  week, 
one  for  women  alone,  and  after  these  had  become 
popular,  one  for  men  and  women  both.  A  large 
number  of  persons  resorted  to  these,  to  the  number 
of  fifty,  sixty  or  eighty  at  once.  But  neither  of  the 
ministers  of  the  town  or  of  the  neighborhood  were 
invited,  or  were  present. 

The  custom  which  thus  grew  up  made  precisely 
what  in  modern  phrase  is  called  a  "  salon,"  when 
we  speak  of  Madame  Recamier  or  of  other  brilliant 
women  in  Paris.  And  the  success  of  Mrs.  Hutchin- 
son's meetings  was  such  as  to  bring  about  a  revolu- 
tion, which,  as  has  been  said,  did  more  injury  to  the 
town  of  Boston  than  anything  which  happened  to 
it  up  to  the  time  of  the  Stamp  Act.  Perhaps  this 


102      A   STUDY  OF  ANNE  HUTCHINSON. 

might  be  said  of  the  injury  inflicted  on  the  whole 
colony  of  Massachusetts. 

But  such,  alas !  are  the  limitations  of  history  that 
we  know  almost  nothing  of  what  passed  at  these 
assemblies  which  were  fated  to  be  so  critical.  One 
clever  letter  of  two  pages,  from  any  bright  young 
woman  who  attended  them,  would  tell  us  more  of 
what  the  meetings  really  were  than  we  know  from 
all  the  accusations  of  Mrs.  Hutchinson's  enemies 
or  from  her  own  brief  and  contemptuous  defenses. 
This  is  certain,  that  they  must  have  been  entertain- 
ing. They  were  called  "  lectures  "  ;  but  precisely 
what  subjects  were  chosen,  or  how  they  were  ar- 
ranged, whether  Mrs.  Hutchinson  "conversed  alone," 
or  whether  others  conversed  also,  does  not  appear. 
Undoubtedly  she  commented  on  Scripture.  But 
what  was  more  unfavorable  to  the  public  peace,  was 
her  repeating  from  memory  the  sermons  she  had  heard 
and  making  her  own  commentaries  upon  them.  Mrs. 
Hutchinson  was  undoubtedly  a  woman  of  rare  genius, 
and  her  religious  experience  had  been  so  real-  that 
she  spoke  easily  and  strongly  on  her  intimate  rela- 
tions with  God.  From  the  report  of  her  own  trial, 
with  which  the  tragedy  of  her  own  life  in  Boston 
ends,  it  is  clear  that  she  was  quick  and  bright,  that 
she  readily  turned  an  attack  upon  him  who  made  it 
with  a  quick  repartee.  This  full  report  is  the  work 
of  a  friend  of  hers,  and  so  far  it  may  be  trusted. 
Weld,  who  was  her  enemy,  says  that  she  had  a 
"ready  wit  and  bold  spirit,"  —  he  has  to  admit  her 
"profitable  and  sober  carriage,"  —  and  that  by  her 


A    STUDY    OF  ANNE  HUTCIIINSON.       103 

kindly  and  tender  ministrations  to  the  sick  she 
had  won  the  regard  of  many  of  the  women  of 
Boston. 

Winthrop,  however,  who  disliked  her  thoroughly, 
says,  "  She  was  more  bold  than  a  man,  though  in  un- 
derstanding and  judgment  inferior  to  many  women."* 

Whatever  she  meant  when  she  began  her  lectures, 
and  whatever  she  said  which  gave  them  their  popu- 
larity, it  is  now  impossible  to  tell.  But  it  would 
happen  once  and  again,  so  often  indeed  that  she 
sealed  her  fate  in  doing  it,  that  in  repeating  ser- 
mons which  she  had  heard  from  various  preachers 
in  the  Bay,  she  did  not  hesitate  to  criticise  them  in 
an  unfriendly  spirit.  She  said  in  brief  that  these 
preachers  preached  a  "  covenant  of  works."  Now 
this  phrase  was  as  a  red  rag  when  it  was  flaunted  in 
the  face  of  an  old-fashioned  Puritan.  His  fathers 
had  despised  the  Roman  church  for  its  ceremonies, 
and  now  for  near  a  hundred  years  had  been  pro- 
claiming because  of  that  ceremonial  that  it  relied  on 
a  "  covenant  of  works.  "  Anybody  who  knows  how 
stiffly  the  government  of  Massachusetts  then  required 
regular  church  attendance,  an  exasperating  observ- 
ance of  "  the  Sabbath,"  and  even  made  church  mem- 
bership a  test  of  fitness  of  citizenship,  can  see  what 
a  handle  it  gave  to  bright  Anne  Hutchinson,  when 
she  said  or  implied  that  their  preachers  had  intro- 
duced a  new  "covenant  of  works"  in  place  of  the 
old  one,  But  the  charge  was  none  the  more  pala- 

*  Winthrop  did  not  suspect  what  Coleridfre  was  so  ready  to  affirm,  that  "the  un- 
derstanding is  the  lowest  of  the  human  faculties." 


104        A  STUD  Y  OF  ANNE  HUTCHINSON. 

table  because,  in  substance,  it  was  true.  Yet  as  the 
basis  of  their  written  theology,  so  far  as  it  was  ex- 
pressed in  words,  these  preachers  held,  as  their  most 
distinguished  evangelical  descendants  have  held,  that 
the  works  or  ritual  are  nothing  but  an  external  sign 
of  a  real  union  with  God,  and  that  their  worth,  for 
any  purpose,  is  of  no  value  in  comparison  with  the 
inestimable  conviction  that  the  man  is  at  one  with 
him. 

Mrs.  Hutchinson  had  come  from  England,  had 
made  her  husband  come,  and  had  brought  with  them 
their  children,  all  because  John  Cotton  had  come 
and  was  to  preach  to  the  church  in  Boston.  So  she 
says,  at  least,  and  this  must  be  taken  as  the  ruling 
motive.  Now,  by  way  of  preparation  for  John  Cot- 
ton's arrival,  John  Wilson  was  relegated  to  the  office 
of  "  pastor,"  equal  perhaps  in  nominal  dignity,  but 
really  engaging  him  more  to  services  of  ministry 
proper  than  to  those  of  "  teaching  or  exhortation  " 
or  the  public  duties  of  a  preacher  or  "prophet." 
The  name  "  prophet "  and  the  duty  of  prophesying 
were  familiarly  spoken  of  among  these  people.  Cot- 
ton was  to  continue  the  famous  Thursday  Lecture, 
which  he  had  established  in  Boston  in  England.  Let 
the  reader  remember  that  no  other  single  grievance 
so  goaded  the  Puritans  into  exile  as  did  the  refusal 
of  the  English  authorities  to  permit  the  popular 
preachers  to  address  their  people  on  week  days.  It 
was  as  if  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior  in  our  day 
should  have  forbidden  Mr.  Beecher,  or  Mr.  Parker, 
or  Dr.  Storrs  to  deliver  an  address  to  a  general  audi- 


A    STUDY    OF  ANNE  HUTCHINSON.        105 

ence,  and  should  have  sent  them  to  prison  when  they 
did  so.  Grateful  as  it  was  to  Mrs.  Hutchinson  to 
listen  again  to  the  words  of  her  old  oracle,  it  may  be 
well  imagined  that  she  found  the  hour  long  when 
Mr.  Wilson's  turn  came  to  preach.  For  the  first 
year  she  had  but  little  of  that  grievance.  For  the 
pastor,  Mr.  Wilson,  was  for  part  or  all  of  that  time 
in  England.  But  in  the  same  ship  with  Sir  Henry 
Vane  he  returned,  on  the  sixth  of  October,  1635. 
When  she  came,  in  her  lectures,  to  comment  upon 
him,  her  criticisms  on  his  sermons  were  not  favor- 
able. After  a  little  he  and  she  were  avowed  ene- 
mies. For  this  she  probably  cared  too  little,  for  all 
the  Boston  church,  excepting  five,  were  on  her  side. 
In  particular,  she  had  the  sympathy  and  support  of 
the  popular  young  governor,  Sir  Henry  Vane,  and 
she  thought  she  had  the  sympathy  and  support  of 
her  friend  and  master,  Cotton.  In  fact,  alas,  Cotton 
did  not  stand  by  her ;  and  the  tragedy  includes  the 
dramatic  accessory  of  a  disloyal  friend.  But  it  must 
be  remembered  that  Mrs.  Hutchinson  was,  perhaps, 
a  hard  person  to  stand  by.  It  is  probable  that  she 
spoke  from  impressions  rather  than  opinions,  and 
that  these  impressions  varied  from  time  to  time. 

On  her  voyage  from  England,  in  the  close  cabin 
of  the  Griffin  —  which  like  a  Griffin  of  romance, 
brought  such  woes  to  Boston —  Mrs.  Hutchinson  and 
the  preacher  Symmes  had  unfriendly  passages  which 
he  never  forgot.  She  had  received  an  "  impression  " 
about  the  length  of  the  voyage,  and  she  said  so. 
This  was  brought  up  in  testimony  against  her  after- 


106       A    STUDY  OF  ANNE  HUT  CHIN  SON. 

ward  by  Symmes,  with  articles  of  theology  which  be- 
longed to  the  view  she  made  so  charming  of  the  inti- 
mate personal  communion  between  God  and  his  chil- 
dren. So  soon  as  they  landed,  indeed,  Symmes  made 
public  his  suspicions  of  her  unsoundness  of  faith,  with 
such  result  that  while  her  husband  was  readily  and  at 
once  received  to  the  communion  of  the  First  Church, 
she  was  not  received  till  a  month  afterwards,  that  there 
might  be  time  for  fit  inquiry.  The  inquiry  was  sat- 
isfactory, and  she  became  a  member  of  the  church. 
But  any  one  who  knows  New  England  of  the  old 
type  knows  that  any  such  delay  and  inquiry  would 
expose  the  subject  of  it  to  a  certain  observation  or 
scrutiny  for  many  years.  Mrs.  Hutchinson's  bril- 
liant conversation  and  her  public  life  quickened  such 
scrutiny. 

But,  as  has  been  said,  she  made  herself  useful  to 
the  women  around  her.  She  was  a  kind  friend, 
an  efficient  nurse,  when  their  children  were  born; 
and  her  lectures  gave  entertainment  in  the  long  win- 
ter and  the  longer  springtime  of  Boston.  Nothing 
transpired  for  two  years  which  required  the  notice 
of  Winthrop's  pen  in  his  diary ;  and  Winthrop  was 
willing  to  notice  some  details  which  were  insignifi- 
cant. The  arrival  of  Vane,  a  year  after,  brought 
new  elements  of  animosity  into  the  little  State ;  and 
it  may  be  guessed  that  with  these  animosities  the 
real  battle  began. 

It  is  quite  possible,  and  even  probable,  that  ex- 
pressions as  strong  as  Anne  Hutchinson  used  regard- 
ing her  intimacy  with  God,  might,  to-day,  be  heard 


A   STUDY    OF  ANNE  HUTCHINSON.       107 

in  any  pulpit  of  America  on  any  Sunday.  She 
sought  for  God's  help  eagerly  and  she  had  found  it, 
and  she  had  told  those  who  heard  her  that  she  had 
found  it  and  that  they  must  find  it.  It  is  difficult, 
not  to  say  impossible,  to  make  the  reader  of  to-day 
understand  how  such  earnest  expressions,  either  de- 
scribing intimacy  with  God  or  recommending  those 
who  heard  her  to  seek  it,  could  become  matter  of 
political  inquiry  among  the  rulers  of  a  State.  But 
at  that  time  all  Protestant  Europe  remembered  the 
extravagances  which  had  shown  themselves  in  the 
course  of  the  last  century,  where  men  had  declared 
that  they  had  the  immediate  authority  of  God  for 
what  they  did,  and  had  declined  to  submit  to  Bible, 
church,  or  rulers.  The  rulers  of  this  little  State 
knew  very  well  that  they  were  most  jealously 
watched  by  what  was  still  the  government  of  Eng- 
land ;  and  knowing  how  earnestly  they  had  them- 
selves declared  that  they  were  seeking  the  present 
direction  of  a  present  God,  they  were  simply  afraid 
of  being  confounded  with  the  extravagances  of  what 
were  familiarly  known  as  the  Antinomians  and  the 
Familists.  The  moment,  therefore,  they  had  occa- 
sion to  find  fault  with  Anne  Hutchinson,  it  was  easy 
for  them  to  persuade  themselves  that  her  enthusi- 
astic expressions  were  dangerous  to  the  State.  It  is 
by  the  experiences  which  Europe  had  had  of  the 
extremes  of  fanaticism  that  we  are  to  explain  their 
readiness  for  drawing  a  series  of  purely  theological 
expressions  into  the  question  or  view  of  the  civil  tri- 
bunals. In  the  final  trial  of  Mrs.  Hutchinson,  great. 


108       A    STUDY  OF  ANNE  HUT  CHINS  ON. 

stress  was  laid  upon  an  assertion  which  she  made  on 
the  voyage,  that  she  had  had  a  divine  revelation  as 
to  its  length.  Her  friends  appealed  to  a  similar 
divine  revelation  which  Thomas  Hooker,  a  faniou.s 
preacher,  had  said  he  received  about  the  political 
condition  of  England.  It  is  clear,  therefore,  that 
they  were  willing  to  acknowledge  that  such  a  reve- 
lation was  possible. 

The  inevitable  conflict  was  perhaps  precipitated 
by  the  arrival  of  Mr.  John  Wheelwright  in  Boston. 
He  was  a  brother-in-law  of  Mrs.  Hutchinson,  having 
married  the  sister  of  her  husband.  He  was,  like 
Cotton,  an  enthusiastic  preacher  of  the  doctrine  of 
the  possible  real  presence  of  God  with  his  children, 
and  was  disposed  to  refer  those  who  heard  him  to 
immediate  communion  with  the  Holy  Spirit.  Mrs. 
Hutchinson  intimates,  as  has  been  said,  that  from  the 
public  preaching  of  Wheelwright  and  of  Cotton  she 
had  derived  the  light  and  life  which  quickened  her 
own  religious  experience.  So  eminent  was  Wheel- 
wright, and  so  well-known  his  eloquence  and  fervor, 
that  at  first  there  was  a  disposition  in  the  Boston 
Church  to  settle  him  as  a  preacher  or  teacher  with 
Cotton,  so  that  that  church  would  have  had  three 
ministers.  Nor  does  it  quite  appear  how  the  tide 
of  enthusiasm  in  this  direction  turned,  for  it  would 
seem  that  a  majority  of  the  church  were  really  de- 
sirous to  take  this  step.  But  it  was  determined  that 
they  would  not  increase  the  number  of  their  clergy, 
and  arrangements  were  made  that  Mr.  Wheelwright 
should  preach  to  the  church  at  Mount  Wollaston, 


A    STUDY  OF  ANNE  HUTCHINSON.      100 

now  called  Braintree.  Still  he  preached  enough  in 
Boston  to  excite  the  whole  colony,  and  indeed  to  dis- 
play the  flag  around  which  the  final  battle  of  re- 
ligious liberty  was  fought  and  was  lost. 

On  the  twentieth  of  January,  1637,  a  public  fast 
had  been  proclaimed  throughout  all  the  churches, 
on  account  of  their  dissensions  and  the  trouble  with 
the  Pequots.  Wheelwright  preached  on  that  occa- 
sion to  his  church  at  Wollaston  a  sermon  which  did 
not  help  the  matter. 

Complaints  were  made  before  the  General  Court 
that  this  sermon  was  seditious  ;  the  court  proceeded 
to  try  that  question,  and  found  Wheelwright  guilty. 
Upon  this,  Vane  and  some  others  sent  in  a  protest, 
which,  however,  the  court  did  not  accept.  Finally, 
on  the  second  of  November,  1637,  "  Mr.  John  Wheel- 
wright, being  formerly  convicted  of  contempt  and 
sedition,  and  now  justifying  himself  and  his  former 
practice,  being  a  disturbance  of  the  civil  peace,  is  by 
the  court  disfranchised  and  banished,  having  four- 
teen days  to  settle  his  affairs,  and  if  within  that  time 
he  depart  not  the  patent,  he  promises  to  render  him- 
self to  Mr.  Stoughton  at  his  house,  to  be  kept  till  he 
be  disposed  of ;  and  Mr.  Hough  undertook  to  satisfy- 
any  charge  that  he,  Mr.  Stoughton,  or  the  country, 
should  be  at." 

After  this  sentence  of  Wheelwright,  the  dominant 
party,  or  what  we  might  call  the  country  party,  felt 
strong  enough  to  deal  with  Mrs.  Hutch inson  herself. 
And  the  whole  tragedy  —  for  it  is  one  —  is  brought  to 
a  close.  Three  years  cover  the  whole  history.  For 


110      A    STUDY  OF  ANNE  HUTCHINSON. 

she  arrived  in  Boston  on  the  eighteenth  of  Septem- 
ber, 1634.  Three  years  after,  the  General  Court 
pronounced  her  brother-in-law  guilty  of  sedition, 
and  exiled  him  and  the  most  important  of  his 
friends.  As  if  they  were  encouraged  by  the  suc- 
cess of  this  tyranny,  they  then  held  a  special  court 
lor  the  trial  of  the  woman  who  was  now  left  in  some 
sort  alone,  but  whom  they  regarded  as  the  instigator 
of  all  these  troubles. 

The  wretched  injustice  which  resulted  in  both 
these  instances  taught  its  great  lesson  to  the  de- 
scendants of  these  men  when  they  established  the 
Constitution  of  this  Commonwealth.  The  children 
separated  forever  their  judicial  tribunals  from  the 
transient  prejudices  of  a  day.  The  fathers,  alas  ! 
left  to  the  same  men  who  were  directing  affairs  the 
trial  and  the  punishment  of  those  who  crossed  their 
path.  There  is  no  doubt  that  the  wise  men  who  sep- 
arated the  judiciary  from  the  executive  and  the  leg- 
islature had  before  their  eyes  in  every  moment  the 
injustice  and  cruelty  of  that  General  Court  of  1637, 
which  acted  at  once  as  law-maker,  as  judge,  and  as 
executioner. 

Anne  Hutchinson's  trial  before  this  court  was 
held  at  Cambridge.  The  court,  which  was  re- 
solved to  condemn  her,  would  not  meet  in  Boston 
for  her  trial,  because  in  Boston  she  would  be  sur- 
rounded by  her  friends.* 

The   tribunal   consisted  of   one  or  two   deputies 

*  The  young  people  who  reside  in  the  neighborhood  should  know  that  they  crossed 
at  Charlestown  by  a  ferry  and  then  went  over  Charlestown  Neck  by  what  is  now  called 
Main  Street  to  Cambridge,  so  that  it  was  then  said  to  be  seven  miles  from  Boston. 


A    STUDY  OF  ANNE  HUT  CHIN  8  ON.       Ill 

from  each  of  the  twelve  towns,  of  the  magistrates 
for  the  year,  and  virtually  of  twelve  or  more  min- 
isters, who,  though  they  were  not  proper  members 
of  the  court,  sat  with  it,  spoke  when  they  chose, 
and  exercised  to  the  utmost  the  authority  which 
their  profession  then  gave  them.  Winthrop,  who 
was  then  Governor,  presided,  and  it  is  a  pity  to 
have  to  say  that  he  showed  as  bad  a  spirit  as 
the  worst  of  them.  For  friends,  she  had  Codding- 
ton,  Nowell,  Bartholomew  of  Salem,  and  her  brother- 
in-law,  John  Wheelwright,  who  was  however  himself 
under  sentence.  Cotton,  who  should  have  stood  by 
her  to  the  last,  showed  the  white  feather,  and  seems 
to  have  thought  only  of  himself. 

They  did  not  venture  to  accuse  her  of  sedition, 
which  was  the  crime  alleged  against  Wheelwright 
and  his  friends.  They  charged  her  simply  with  dis- 
turbing their  peace  ;  and  for  the  specific  disturbance, 
they  said  that  she  had  maligned  their  preachers, 
charging  them  with  preaching  only  a  covenant  of 
works,  and  not  being  able  ministers  of  the  New 
Testament.* 

To  give  to  the  trial  all  its  terrible  burlesque,  it 
should  be  remembered  that  every  man  in  the  tribu- 
nal had  said  these  same  things  and  much  worse  of 
all  the  prominent  ecclesiastics  in  England.  Indeed, 
those  of  them  who  were  exiles  and  outlaws,  as  were 
Cotton  and  Peters  and  Shepherd,  were  exiled  on  pre- 
cisely this  charge,  that  they  created  a  disturbance 
by  their  lectures.  Before  such  a  tribunal  the  exam- 

*  It  must  be  remembered  these  are  Scriptural  expressions. 


112       A   STUDY   OF  ANNE  HUTCHINSON. 

ination  of  the  prisoner  proceeded.  It  soon  degene- 
rated into  a  controversy  of  brisk  repartee,  varied  by 
a  long  episode,  which  was  introduced  by  Mrs.  Hutch- 
inson  and  her  friends,  as  to  whether  the  ministers, 
who  were  at  once  witnesses  and  accusers,  should  be 
sworn.  But  from  the  whole  report,  which  is  made 
by  some  one  not  unfriendly  to  the  prisoner,  one  can 
pick  out  all  the  more  important  details  of  the  story. 
Her  extravagances  on  shipboard,  which  had  so 
alienated  Symmes,  are  stated  thus.  One  day  she 
said,  "  What  should  you  say  if  I  told  you  we  should 
arrive  in  three  weeks  ? "  Again  she  said  that  she 
had  taken  great  comfort  in  Hooker's  declaration 
that  England  should  be  destroyed,  and  that  she 
would  not  have  followed  Cotton  to  America,  had 
she  not  believed  him.  She  denied  saying  that  she 
was  disgusted  by  the  meanness  of  Boston.  As  to- 
her  meetings,  she  said  herself  that  having  absented 
herself  from  certain  meetings  she  did  not  like,  she 
was  severely  criticised  and  that  it  was  precisely  be- 
cause she  would  not  hold  herself  aloof  from  the  rest 
that  she  had  established  her  own  lectures  for  women. 
On  the  other  side  it  is  conceded  that  for  several 
months,  six  or  more,  these  meetings  continued  with- 
out offense.  We  should  probably,  therefore,  be  right 
in  saying  that  they  did  not  attract  the  anger  of  the 
country  until  after  the  arrival  of  Vane  and  his  dis- 
tinguished companions.  And  it  seems  probable  that 
the  condescending  criticism  which  the  new-comers 
all  together  made  upon  the  wilderness  habits  of 
those  who  had  had  to  rough-hew  destiny,  had  a 


A   STUDY  OF  ANNE  HUTCHINSON.       US 

good  deal  to  do  with  the  ill-favor  with  which  the 
old  settlers  received  them  and  theirs. 

We  have  two  reports  of  the  trial,  beside  Win- 
throp's  general  statement.  One  of  these  is  from  her 
friends,  and  was  taken  quite  at  length,  probably  in 
shorthand.  The  other  is  from  Weld,  the  minister  of 
Roxbury,  who  was  one  of  her  bitterest  enemies.  It 
must  be  observed  that  it  is  in  no  sense  a  trial  for 
heresy,  but  that  she  is  charged  with  disturbing  the 
peace  of  the  country.  No  one  cares  now  to  follow 
the  detail  of  her  quick  repartee,  or  of  the  confession 
either  of  the  court  or  of  the  elders  who  were  present. 

She  was  sentenced  thus :  "  Mrs.  Hutchinson,  the 
wife  of  Mr.  William  Hutchinson,  being  convented 
for  traducing  the  ministers  and  their  ministry  in  the 
country,  she  declared  voluntarily  her  revelations,  and 
that  she  should  be  delivered,  and  the  court  ruined 
with  their  posterity,  and  thereupon  was  banished, 
and  in  the  meantime  was  committed  to  Mr.  Joseph 
Weld  (of  Roxbury)  until  the  court  shall  dispose  of 
her." 

That  winter  she  spent  at  Roxbury,  with  Joseph 
Weld,  a  brother  of  the  clergyman  who  afterward 
prepared  a  bitter  history  of  all  this  matter,  very 
strongly  prejudiced  against  her.  In  the  course  of 
the  winter,  the  First  Church  of  Boston,  of  which  she 
was  a  member,  had  an  ecclesiastical  trial,  which 
ended  in  her  excommunication,  although  in  the 
course  of  it  she  withdrew  almost  all  the  heresies 
which  were  considered  as  of  the  first  importance. 

She  and  her  husband,  with  their  family,  removed 


114       A   STUDY  OF  ANNE  HUTCHINSON. 

to  Aquidneck,  which  is  now  Newport,  of  which  he 
was  one  of  the  purchasers.  She  afterward  left  this 
beautiful  home  and  settled  in  Connecticut,  to  the 
west  of  the  colony  of  New  Haven  and  to  the  east 
of  the  Dutch,  in  a  region  where  the  Indians  were 
under  no  restraint  from  either  party.  And  there 
she  and  her  children  were  killed  in  an  Indian 
massacre. 

I  am  sorry  to  say  that  the  Massachusetts  writers 
opposed  to  her  regarded  the  massacre  as  a  divine 
judgment  upon  her.  It  is  difficult  to  draw  any  les- 
son from  the  whole  story.  But  it  does  serve  as  one 
illustration  in  a  hundred  of  the  tremendous  serious- 
nesses of  moral  purpose  which  was  wrought  in  with 
all  the  fortunes  of  the  infant  State. 


ANNE  HUTCHINSON'S  EXILE. 


<l  Home,  home,  —where's  my  baby's  home? 

Here  we  seek,  there  we  seek,  my  baby's  home  to  find. 
Come,  come,  —  come,  my  baby,  come! 

We  found  her  home,  we  lost  her  home,  and  home  is  far  behind. 
Come,  my  baby,  come ! 
Find  my  baby's  home !  " 


The  baby  clings,  the  mother  sings,  the  pony  stumbles  on ; 

The  father  leads  the  beast  along  the  tangled,  muddy  way; 
The  boys  and  girls  trail  on  behind ;  the  sun  will  soon  be  gone, 

And  starlight  bright  will  take  again  the  place  of  sunny  day. 
"  Home,  home,  —  where's  my  baby's  home? 

Here  we  seek,  there  we  seek,  my  baby's  home  to  find. 
Come,  come,  —  come,  my  baby,  come ! 

We  found  her  home,  we  lost  her  home,  and  home  is  far  behind. 
Come,  my  baby,  come ! 
Find  my  baby's  home ! " 


A   STUDY   OF  ANNE  HUTCH2NSON,       115 


The  sun  goes  clown  behind  the  lake,  the  night  fogs  gather  chill, 

The  children's  clothes  are  torn,  and  the  children's  feet  are  sore. 
•"  Keep  on,  my  boys;  keep  on,  my  girls,  till  all  have  passed  the  hill, 

Then  ho,  my  girls,  and  ho,  my  boys,  for  fire  and  sleep  once  more! ' 
And  all  the  time  she  sings  to  the  baby  on  her  breast, 
"  Home,  my  darling,  sleep,  my  darling,  find  a  place  for  rest; 
Who  gives  the  fox  his  burrow  will  give  my  bird  a  nest. 
Come,  my  baby,  come ! 
Find  my  baby's  home ! " 

He  lifts  the  mother  from  the  beast,  the  hemlock  boughs  they  spread, 
And  make  the  child  a  cradle  sweet  with  fern  leaves  and  with  bays. 
The  baby  and  her  mother  are  resting  on  their  bed, 

He  strikes  the  flint,  he  blows  the  spark,  and  sets  the  twig  ablaze. 
"  Sleep,  my  child,  sleep,  my  child!   Baby,  find  her  rest 
Here  beneath  the  gracious  skies,  upon  her  father's  breast; 
"Who  gives  the  fox  his  burrow  will  give  my  bird  a  nest. 
Come,  come,  with  her  mother,  come! 
Home,  home,  find  my  baby's  home ! " 

The  guardian  stars  above  the  trees  their  loving  vigil  keep; 

The  cricket  sings  her  lullaby,  the  whippoorwTill  his  cheer. 
The  father  knows  his  Father's  arms  are  round  them  as  they  sleep; 

The  mother  knows  that  in  his  arms  her  darling  need  not  fear. 
•"  Home,  home  —  my  baby's  home  is  here; 

With  God  we  seek,  with  God  we  find,  the  place  for  baby's  rest. 
Hist,  my  child,  list,  my  child;  angels  guard  us  here. 

The  God  of  heaven  is  here  to  make  and  keep  my  birdie's  nest. 
Home,  home,  — here's  my  baby's  home!" 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

INDUSTRY   AND    COMMERCE. 

THE  story  of  Anne  Hutchinson  and  the  fortunes 
of  Sir  Henry  Vane  in  America  deserve  the 
space  which  has  been  given  to  them,  because  they 
show  in  a  critical  passage  the  habit  of  thought  of 
the  new-born  Commonwealth.  But  whatever  the  in- 
terest which  attaches  to  these  proceedings  of  the 
first  years,  the  reader  must  remember  that  Massa- 
chusetts was  still  in  those  times  a  very  small  commu- 
nity. When  she  felt  strong  enough  to  exile  from 
her  jurisdiction  sixty  or  seventy  men,  most  of  whom 
were  freemen  and  all  of  whom  could  bear  arms,  the 
whole  number  of  her  voters  was  but  five  hundred 
persons,  and  her  whole  population  not  more  than 
ten  thousand,  while,  according  to  some  estimates,  it 
was  less  than  six  thousand  persons.  It  is  this  little 
community,  as  weak  as  this  in  1637,  which,  at  the 
end  of  the  century,  only  sixty-three  years  later, 
owns  more  ships  than  all  Scotland  and  Ireland, 
negotiates,  one  might  almost  say,  with  the  Crown  of 
England  as  an  independent  power  might  do,  and,  in 
the  period  of  less  than  two  generations,  has  risen  to 
the  dignity  of  a  State,  stamping  its  own  coin,  mak- 
ing its  own  laws,  and  determining  its  own  policy. 
.  lie 


IND  US  TR  Y  AND    C  OMMER  CE\  1 1 7 

Before  we  attempt  the  story  of  any  separate  in- 
cidents in  the  history  of  this  State,  we  must  try  to 
understand  what  was  the  secret  which  gave  to  it 
such  rapid  increase  in  population  and  power. 

Governor  Hutchinson,  a  descendant  of  Anne 
Hutchinson,  of  whom  we  have  been  speaking,  col- 
lected materials  for  the  history  of  Massachusetts  as 
earty  as  1760,  and,  not  long  after,  published  two 
volumes  of  her  history.  He  says  that  the  immigra- 
tion into  New  England  was  never  more  than  forty 
thousand  persons ;  that,  after  1640,  it  was  not  so 
large  as  was  the  number  of  persons  who  returned 
from  Massachusetts  to  England.  The  reader  will 
remember  that  in  the  year  1642  the  Civil  War  in 
England  broke  out ;  "  Charles  I.  raised  his  rebel  ban- 
ner against  his  independent  Commons."  From  that 
time  till  1660,  the  Puritan  p*arty  was  in  the  ascend- 
ant in  England,  and  many  persons  interested  in  its 
fortunes  went  either  to  join  the  popular  army  or  to 
take  share  in  the  administration.  Such  men  were 
Sir  Richard  Saltonstall,  General  Sedgwick,  Thomas 
Hooker,  who  became  Cromwell's  chaplain,  and, 
among  young  men,  many  of  the  graduates  of  the 
first  class  at  the  University.  Downing  changed  his 
coat,  and  became  in  after  years  a  Royalist.  Wood- 
bridge  of  the  same  class  was,  for  the  period  of  the 
Commonwealth,  the  minister  of  the  parish  church  of 
Newbury,  not  far  from  Oxford. 

The  increase  of  population,  then,  is  to  be  ac- 
counted for  by  the  growth  from  within.  No  cen- 
suses, as  we  now  understand  that  word,  were  taken. 


118  INVVSTKY  AND    COMMERCE. 

and  the  estimates  which  can  be  made  are  not  quite 
accurate.  But  for  our  readers  it  will  be  enough  to 
say  that,  in  the  first  generation,  until  Philip's 
War,  the  population  doubled  in  twenty-five  years. 
This  was  a  rate  of  increase  which  had  not  been  ob- 
served in  Europe,  where  unequal  social  arrangements, 
frequent  wars,  and  in  many  instances  terrible 
plagues,  kept  down  the  rate  of  increase.  But,. 
roughly  speaking,  allowing  for  one  long  exception, 
such  an  estimate  as  this  gives  the  population  of 
Massachusetts  for  any  period  between  the  settlement 
and  the  Revolutionary  War.  The  whole  number  of 
emigrants  from  England  was  not  more  than  forty 
thousand,  perhaps  not  more  than  thirty.  Of  these, 
a  very  considerable  number  returned  ;  and,  counting 
from  the  year  1640,  it  would  be  safe  to  say  that  the 
population  in  1665  had  'doubled,  giving  about  seventy 
thousand  whites  in  the  colony.  At  the  end  of  the 
century  it  was  considerably  more  than  this  num- 
ber, though  it  had  not  increased  in  the  same  pro- 
portion. Most  of  the  increase  showed  itself  in  the 
extension  of  settlements  in  the  interior.  The  pop- 
ulation of  the  town  of  Boston  did  not  materially  in- 
crease, it  would  seem,  from  1660  till  1760  ;  that  is  to 
say,  at  the  later  of  these  periods  it  was  not  above 
twenty  thousand;  at  the  first  of  these  periods  it  was 
at  least  six  thousand.  It  did  not  increase  at  all  in 
the  ratio  of  the  increase  of  the  colony  at  large. 

We  are  to  see,  then,  how  it  was  that  so  small  a 
body  of  people  built  up  a  State  so  rich  and  prosper- 
ous. Arid  the  answer  is  to  be  found  in  the  freedom 


INDUSTRY  AND    COMMERCE.  lly 

of  individual  action  which  the  new  world  gave  to 
each  of  those  who  were  born  in  it.  Under  the  old' 
civilizations,  if  it  is  fair  to  call  them  so,  a  set  of  arti- 
ficial restrictions  condemned  each  man  and  woman 
to  a  certain  very  limited  line  of  action.  These  re- 
strictions, belonging  to  the  feudal  system,  dropped 
off:  from  the  settlers  as  soon  as  they  arrived  in  a  new 
land.  From  that  moment  there  was,  first  of  all, 
land  enough  for  each  man  to  take  what  he  wanted 
and  work  on  it  as  he  pleased.  From  that  moment, 
also,  there  was  a  demand  for  every  manufacture  or 
other  product  of  human  industry,  so  quick  and  so 
determined,  that  there  was  a  temptation  to  meet 
that  demand,  if  it  could  be  met.  From  that  moment 
there  were  no  guilds  or  other  associated  bodies  of 
work-people,  putting  restrictions  on  the  ingenuity  or 
effort  of  any  person.  In  a  word,  for  every  child  of 
God,  man  or  woman,  there  was  open  promotion,  a 
fair  field,  and  permission,  as  the  managers  of  foot- 
races say,  to  "  go  as  they  pleased."  It  is  to  this  ab- 
solute freedom  of  the  American  settler  that  the 
American  people  and  States  owe  the  very  rapid  in- 
crease of  their  wealth  and  prosperity.  It  is  tin- 
habit  of  writers  in  older  communities  to  speak  of  the 
resources  of  virgin  soils ;  but  virgin  soils  produce 
nothing  until  they  are  wooed  by  intelligent  in- 
dustry; and  intelligent  industry  shows  itself  most 
eager  and  most  efficient  where  every  man  or  every 
woman  is  left  to  his  or  her  own  choice  as  to  the  way 
of  work  and  as  to  the  conditions  in  which  work 
shall  be  done. 


120  INDUSTRY  AND    COMMERCE. 

The  hope  with  which  most  colonists  in  all  ages 
change  their  homes  is  the  hope  of  living  easier  lives 
than  they  have  lived  before.  The  restlessness  of 
certain  spirits  takes  them  from  home ;  but,  on  the 
whole,  the  inducement  of  the  great  body  of  emi- 
grants is  the  expectation  that  they  shall  gain  more 
in  the  new  place  than  they  have  left  in  the  old, 
from  the  work  or  the  labor  which  they  are  willing  to 
give.  Of  all  stimulants,  therefore,  the  expectation 
of  gold  is  the  most  immediate  force  in  rallying  num- 
bers of  emigrants.  The  great  wave  of  Spanish  emi- 
gration, such  as  Columbus  and  Cortes  saw  it,  and,  in 
later  time,  the  waves  of  emigration  to  California,  to 
Australia,  and  to  Africa,  all  which  were  started  by 
the  announcement  that  considerable  quantities  of 
gold  could  be  had  for  very  little  effort,  are  illustra- 
tions of  this  stimulus.  In  the  case  of  the  New 
England  colonies,  there  was  no  such  bribe.  No  re- 
turning fisherman  pretended  that  he  had  found 
kings  with  crowns  of  gold  sitting  on  the  thrones  of 
Norumbega.  The  ten  years'  experiment  of  the  fore- 
fathers at  Plymouth  had  shown  that  the  exports 
which  they  made  were  of  as  humble  articles  as  sassa- 
fras wood,  barrel-staves  and  furs.  The  promises  of 
gain  which  John  White,  the  founder  of  Massachusetts, 
was  able  to  offer,  were  based  principally  upon  the 
fortunes  of  the  fishing  ventures  which  went  out 
from  the  seaport  of  Dorchester;  and  an  old  joke, 
carefully  preserved,  is  the  authority  for  saying  that 
the  colony  of  the  Bay  was  built  upon  fish,  or  upon 
the  expectation  of  taking  fish.  The  original  stations, 


INDUSTRY  AND    COMMERCE.  121 

at  which  the  fleets  of  Winthrop  made  rendezvous  at 
Cape  Ann  and  at  Salem,  \vere  what  we  should  call 
fishing-stations.  The  fishermen  on  the  coast,  who 
followed  an  industry  carried  on  there  for  more  than 
;-,  hundred  years,  began  to  find  the  convenience  of 
stations  on  shore  where  they  could  meet  their  imme- 
diate necessities,  where  they  could  dry  their  fish, 
and  from  which,  indeed,  the  fish  could  be  packed 
and  shipped  for  a  European  market.  Much  of  the 
same  sort  of  thing  is  now  going  on  on  the  shore  of 
Newfoundland  and  the  British  provinces  of  America, 
in  the  neighborhood  of  the  great  fishing  fields,  and 
the  diplomacy  regarding  these  stations  is  one  of  the 
most  difficult  subjects  of  present  politics.  This  in- 
dustry of  fishing,  curing  fish,  and  then  sending  it  for 
sale  to  Europe,  was,  from  the  beginning,  a  prominent 
factor  in  the  prosperity  of  Massachusetts.  At  the 
happy  suggestion  of  a  Boston  merchant,  rather  more 
than  a  century  ago,  the  statue  of  a  codfish  was  hung 
in  the  hall  of  the  Massachusetts  legislature,  in 
commemoration  of  her  indebtedness  to  unnumbered 
myriads  of  his  race.  And  there  could  be  no  more 
fit  emblem  of  the  first  successes  of  Massachusetts 
industry. 

Another  memorial  is  not  yet  forgotten,  which 
appeared  in  the  amenities  of  social  life.  "In  my 
early  days,"  says  Doctor  Palfrey,  "  the  most  ceremo- 
nious Boston  feast  was  never  set  out  on  Saturday 
(then  the  common  dinner-party  day)  without  the  dun- 
fish  at  one  end  of  the  table  ;  abundance,  variety, 
pomp  of  other  things,  but  that  unfailingly.  It  was 


1 22  2ND  US TR  Y  AND   C  OMMER  CE. 

a  sort  of  New  England  point  of  honor ;  and  luxurious 
livers  pleased  themselves,  over  their  nuts  and  wine, 
with  the  thought  that,  while  suiting  their  palates, 
they  had  been  doing  their  part  in  a  wide  combina- 
tion to  maintain  the  fisheries  and  create  a  naval 
strength."  I 

If  fish  were  to  be  taken,  there  must  be  boats  and 
larger  vessels  for  their  capture,  and  John  Winthrop, 
the  wise,  provident  governor,  laid  the  foundation 
of  another  very  important  industry  when,  on  the 
Fourth  of  July,  1631,  only  a  twelvemonth  from  his 
own  landing,  he  launched  on  the  Mystic  River,  in 
what  is  now  the  town  of  Medford,  a  vessel  of  sixty 
tons,  which  he  called  The  Blessing  of  the  Bay. 
She  was  the  first  vessel  built  in  Massachusetts.  She 
was  a  prosperous  vessel,  and,  as  it  proved,  well 
deserved  her  name.  From  that  time  forward,  ship- 
building was  an  important  industry  of  Massachusetts.* 
It  proved  that  the  forests  of  New  England  provided 
every  wood,  of  admirable  quality,  requisite  for  the 
purpose  of  the  ship-builder.  At  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth  century  the  spars  of  the  New  England 
pine  forests  had  been  sent  to  every  ship-building 
nation  in  Europe ;  and  it  would  be  fair  to  say  that, 
in  the  great  naval  battles  of  the  Revolutionary  War 
and  the  wars  which  followed,  the  masts  of  every 
capital  ship  had  been  cut  in  Maine  or  in  New 

*  It  is  worthy  of  remark  that  the  French  word  charpentier,  always  used  in  France  for 
a  builder  of  ships,  has  come  in  New  England,  under  its  form  of  carpenter,  to  mean  any 
worker  in  wood,  whether  he  be  a  ship-builder  or  no.  This  change  of  derivation  points 
to  the  period  when  the  greater  part  of  the  men  who  were  working  in  wood  were  engaged 
in  building  sea-going  vessels. 


INDUSTRY  AND    COMMERCE.  123 

Hampshire.  For  Massachusetts  and  New  Hamp- 
shire now  sent  their  spars  to  Spain,  to  France,  and 
to  England.  With  the  demand  made  upon  the  ship- 
builders, and  with  the  ingenuity  which  displays 
itself  where  men  are  left  to  do  their  best,  the  ships 
built  in  the  Bay  attained  a  world-wide  reputation. 
Before  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century,  the 
building  of  ships  for  sale  in  Europe  was  a  regular 
occupation.  Many  a  ship  was  built  and  sent  abroad, 
never  to  return  to  her  birthplace.  As  late  as  the 
year  1743,  the  ship  America  was  built  for  the  Eng- 
lish navy  in  the  harbor  of  Portsmouth.* 

The  natural  expectation  of  colonists  in  a  new 
land  is  that  they  will  easily  obtain  everything  from 
Nature's  bounty.  The  prejudices  of  mankind  are 
very  strong  and  run  always  in  one  direction.  They 
lead  men  to  think  that,  if  the  world  had  been  left 
to  itself,  they  would  not  be  hungry  nor  thirsty. 
There  is  constantly  cropping  out  the  notion  that,  in 
the  primitive  world,  mutton,  beef  and  poultry  run 
about  ready  cooked  for  dinner,  and  that  a  man  has 
only  to  put  out  his  hand  to  find  his  daily  bread  ready 
for  his  use.  All  new  settlers  find  themselves  dis- 
appointed in  such  hopes  ;  never  were  men  worse 
disappointed  than  were  those  who  landed  at  Plymouth 
or  at  Salem.  A  terrible  sadness  must  have  come 
over  Winthrop  and  Dudley  when,  from  the  hills 
behind  Salem  or  from  the  rocks  of  Roxbury,  they 

*  Not  to  be  confounded  with  the  celebrated  ship-of-the-lme  America,  built  for  Paul 
Jones  in  1780-81.  This  ship  was  presented  to  I,oui«  XVI.,  was  captured  by  the 
English  at  Toulon,  and,  under  the  name  of  the  Impetueux,  was  the  favorite  ship  of  Lord 
Exmouth. 


124  INDUSTRY  AND    COMMERCE. 

saw  how  little  was  the  native  production,  and  under- 
stood, perhaps  for  the  first  time,  that  they  could  not 
feed  a  thousand  people  on  the  blackberries  and 
whortleberries  which  they  found  growing  wild.  The 
sea,  as  has  been  said,  never  failed  them ;  it  never  has 
failed  New  England.  At  this  moment,  less  than 
forty  thousand  New  Englanders  draw  from  the  sea 
one  half  as  much  food  as  the  whole  fertile  West 
sends  to  her  in  the  shape  of  breadstuffs.  So,  as  the 
reader  knows,  the  colonists  of  the  beginning  were 
able  to  maintain  life  by  eating  clams,  oysters,  lobsters, 
mackerel,  cod,  haddock,  salmon,  trout,  and  fish  in 
a  hundred  other  forms. 

In  all  these  transactions,  the  coin,  as  it  may  be 
called,  which  the  Indians  of  New  England  and  New 
York  used  among  themselves,  played  an  important 
part.  It  was  generally  called  wampum  —  sometimes 
peage  —  wrampum-peage  being,  indeed,  its  full  name. 
It  was  made  by  the  Indian  women  of  the  shores  of 
Long  Island  Sound,  from  shells  thrown  up  on  their 
beaches.  Wampum  was  of  three  colors,  and  its  value 
varied  with  the  colors.  It  was  of  shapes  differing 
more  or  less,  but  every  piece  of  wampum  was  what 
we  should  call  a  bead,  and  could  be  strung  on  a  cord, 
passing  through  the  hole  made  for  that  purpose. 

The  writers  on  gold  and  silver  currency  are  fond 
of  telling  us  that  at  bottom,  or  in  its  origin,  such 
currency  represents  a  bit  of  the  ornament  of  a  savage 
race,  and  that  when  in  Quentin  Durward,  Balafre 
wrenched  off  a  ring  from  the  collar  he  wore,  and 
gave  it  in  pay  for  service,  he  did  exactly  what  an 


INDUSTRY  AND    COMMERCE.  125 

exquisite  of  to-day  does  when  he  gives  a  piece  of 
money  for  the  same  purpose.  It  is  certain  that  this 
theory  of  currency  is  true  with  regard  to  wampum. 
Its  convenience,  as  a  medium  of  exchange,  gave  it  a 
conventional  value.  But  this  value  could  not  have 
been  maintained  but  for  its  primitive  value  as  a 
piece  of  ornament.  This  value  was  still  further 
maintained  by  its  use  in  high  ceremonial.  When  a 
treaty  was  made  —  even  as  far  West  as  the  Iroquois 
Indians  —  a  belt  of  wampum  was  given  in  token  of 
the  agreement.  Perhaps  if  there  were  several  arti- 
cles, as  many  belts  accompanied  the  ratification. 
These  belts  were  kept  in  the  archives  of  the  con- 
tracting tribes  ;  were  indeed  almost  all,  perhaps  all, 
which  was  kept  there. 

And,  to  this  hour,  among  the  Christian  Indians  in 
the  east  of  Maine,  it  would  be  thought  that  the 
ceremony  of  marriage  was  not  properly  completed, 
unless  one  or  more  belts  of  wampum  passed  between 
the  parties.  The  art  of  making  wampum  for  this 
purpose  is  not  lost  among  the  mothers  of  those 
tribes.* 

It  might  then  well  prove  that,  when  the  Blessing 
of  the  Bay  went  to  the  Connecticut  River  for  corn, 
she  did  riot  carry  with  her  for  barter  all  the  articles 
which  the  river  Indians  needed,  but  that  she  took 
strings  of  wampum  with  which  those  Indians  in  turn 
could  buy  what  they  needed  from  Dutch  or  other 
traders. 

*  And  for  purposes  akin  to  these,  among  the  Indians  of  the  Pacific  coast,  a  manufac- 
tory of  wampum  is  now  carried  on  in  New  Jersey. 


126  IND  USTR  Y  AND    C  OMMER  CE. 

Such  commerce  as  this  supplied  the  people  of  the 
new-born  State  with  what  they  needed  of  manufac- 
tured articles,  when  they  could  not  supply  it  for 
themselves.  But  they  learned  at  once  the  lesson 
that  the  long  winters  of  New  England  were  not  to 
be  given  simply  to  skating  or  "  coasting."  From 
their  late  spring  in  May  to  the  very  end  of  their 
harvest  in  October,  there  were  but  six  months'  time 
for  work.  The  fishing  voyages  occupied  a  little 
more  time,  but,  as  they  were  then  conducted,  no  ves- 
sels went  fishing  in  the  severest  months  of  winter. 
Yet  men  and  women  and  children  were  alive  in 
these  months,  and  were  eating  food,  and  the  New 
Englander  had  the  wit  to  see  that  their  possible 
industry  in  those  months  must  be  provided  for. 

The  invention  of  the  "  winter  school/'  an  inven- 
tion which  seems  almost  peculiar  to  New  England, 
made  a  partial  provision  for  this  industry,  else 
wasted,  —  so  far  as  boys  and  girls  were  concerned. 
In  the  very  beginning,  hardly  knowing  what  they 
did,  the  General  Courts  of  the  early  years  had  or- 
dered that  each  town  should  maintain  a  school,  open 
freely  to  each  and  all.  It  was  evident  to  them  all 
that  if  there  were  to  be  a  State  every  man  and 
woman  must  have  the  rudiments  of  learning.  By  a 
bold  communism  they  threw  on  the  public  treasury 
the  charge  of  the  schools.  Then,  by  an  ingenious 
adaptation  of  the  time  they  had  to  use,  they  threw 
upon  the  winter  months  the  more  important  part  of 
the  school  work.  Twenty-two  or  twenty-three  weeks 
in  the  year  were  all  that  were  generally  assigned  for 


INDUSTRY  AND    COMMERCE.  liI7 

the  work  of  these  schools,  unless  they  were  "  gram- 
mar schools,"  in  which  boys  were  prepared  for  the 
college.  Of  these  weeks  thirteen  or  fourteen  were 
generally  given  to  the  "  winter  schools,"  which  was 
frequented  by  all  the  scholars,  at  least  till  they 
were  sixteen  years  old.  A  "summer  school"  of 
perhaps  ten  weeks'  session,  received  the  small  boys 
and  girls,  whose  work  was  of  no  use  to  any  one. 
But  attendance  here  was  considered  such  a  mark 
that  the  pupil  was  of  no  use,  that  boy  or  girl 
escaped  from  it  at  as  early  an  age  as  possible,  to 
take  part  in  the  work  of  the  farm,  the  fishing-boat, 
or  the  household. 

Provision  must  also  be  made  for  the  unoccupied 
hours  of  those  who  were  too  old  to  go  to  school.  Of 
course,  every  farmer  had  some  work,  in  the  way  of 
preparation,  which  could  be  thrown  on  the  winter 
months,  and  which  those  months  provided  for,  where 
a  provident  man  directed  matters.  But,  beside  this 
work,  the  New  Englander,  from  the  very  first, 
devoted  himself  to  home  industries.  He  learned 
very  early  the  lesson,  that  it  is  in  the  use  of  such 
broken  bits  of  time  that  success  on  the  whole  is 
gained.  The  nation  which  does  not  know  how  to 
use  its  industry  in  all  hours  of  all  months  throws 
away  its  most  valuable  resource.  Yet  industry  is  a 
resource  which  cannot  be  canned  or  salted  down  for 
use  on  any  future  occasion  or  in  any  distant  place. 
Us  stern  motto  is  "  Now  or  never."  And  the  work- 
man or  the  nation  who,  under  whatever  delusion,  re- 
fuses to  use  this  treasure  at  the  moment,  is  like  the 


128  INDUSTRY  AND    COMMERCE. 

king  who  throws  his  jewels  into  the  sea,  or  like 
the  pettish  beauty  who  lays  aside  her  morning- 
glories  to  adorn  her  evening  triumph.  When  such 
a  man  or  such  a  nation  has  lost  this  treasure,  it  can- 
not be  recovered  by  tears  or  by  statesmanship. 

The  New  Englander  of  the  first  generations 
learned  his  lesson  more  wisely  and  taught  it  to  his 
sons.  He  determined  to  have  at  home  the  means  of 
working  at  home.  There  sprung  into  being  what 
Mr.  Welden  in  his  Economic  History  calls  the 
"  Home-spun  Industries." 

The  colonial  system  of  Europe  was  based  on  a  mad 
desire  of  the  home  governments  to  repress  such  in- 
dustries in  the  colonies.  At  the  moment  of  which 
we  write,  the  law  of  Spain  compelled  the  colonist  in 
Mexico  to  wear  cloth  made  in  Spain,  instead  of 
making  it  for  himself.  Possibly  such  a  tyranny 
might  have  been  exercised  over  New  England,  as 
it  would  certainly  have  been  attempted  had  Charles 
Stuart  kept  his  head  and  his  crown.  But  it  is  not 
probable  that  even  a  Council  of  Lauds  and  Straf- 
fords  and  Stuarts  would  have  succeeded  in  the  effort. 
Fortunately  for  New  England,  it  was  never  so  much 
as  made.  By  the  time  Massachusetts  was  adjusting 
herself  to  her  business,  the  first  Charles  Stuart  had 
too  much  on  his  hands  at  home  to  care  for  her  spin- 
ning or  weaving  or  felting  or  smelting.  As  the  sheep 
increased,  her  people  sheared  their  own  wool  —  they 
made  spinning-wheels  for  their  wives  and  daughters, 
who  spun  the  wool  into  yarn ;  they  made  looms  in 
which  the  yarn  was  woven,  and  filling  mills,  in 


INDUSTRY  AND    COMMENCE.  1^9 

which  the  cloth  was  cleansed  and  made  firm  and 
sightly.  Thus  seven  eighths  of  their  woollen  cloth 
w;is  made  in  New  England.  By  similar  industries 
tlnry  tanned  their  own  leather  and  made  their  own 
shoes  ;  they  pelted  their  own  furs  and  made  their  own 
hats;  they  dug  their  own  ores  from  their  own  bogs 
and  smelted  their  own  iron.  All  such  industries 
went  forward  and  established  themselves,  while  the 
two  parties  in  England  were  engaged  in  the  Civil 
War.  The  Parliament  passed  The  Navigation  Act 
for  the  precise  purpose  of  providing  for  the  mer- 
chant ships  of  England  markets  not  open  to  those  of 
foreigners.  But  Cromwell  saw  that  the  New  Eng- 
land men  were  in  no  sense  foreigners.  While  his 
sway  lasted,  the  New  England  ship  went  unques- 
tioned where  the  New  England  merchant  chose. 
And  when  the  Commonwealth  fell,  it  was  difficult 
to  change  the  channels  of  commerce  which  had  thus 
been  established. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

THE    PEOPLE    CALLED    QUAKERS. 

IN  the  year  1657  four  persons  were  hanged  in 
Boston  for  being  Quakers.  They  had  previously 
been  banished  from  the  Colony  on  pain  of  death,  but 
absolutely  disregarding  the  sentence  of  the  court 
they  either  had  refused  to  leave  the  Colony  or  had 
returned  to  it,  therefore  the  death  penalty  was  ex- 
acted according  to  law. 

This  is  doubtless  the  extreme  of  persecution. 
There  is  not  much  difference  between  burning  and 
hanging  for  difference  of  religious  opinion.  And 
the  only  reason  for  the  banishment  and  subsequent 
execution  of  these  unfortunate  men  and  women  was 
that  they  were  Quakers. 

The  authorities  of  the  Massachusetts  Bay  Colony 
were,  as  has  been  already  seen,  rather  hard  upon 
any  who  did  not  agree  with  them  as  to  how  matters 
civil  and  religious  should  be  arranged.  Roger  Wil- 
liams and  Anne  Hutchinson  had  made  themselves 
obnoxious  by  their  differences  with  the  constituted 
authorities,  and  the  constituted  authorities  had  set- 
tled the  difficulty  by  banishing  them  both  from  the 
country.  In  so  doing  they  proceeded  upon  the  basis 
that  the  Company  of  the  Massachusetts  Bay  had 
130 


THE  PEOPLE   CALLED    QUAKERS.        131 

almost  sovereign  and  absolute  jurisdiction  over  the 
territory  which  had  been  granted  it  by  the  Crown 
in  1628.  Whether  it  really  did  or  did  not  possess  by 
law  all  the  power  that  it  thus  assumed  to  possess 
does  not  make  much,  if  any,  difference  in  the  matter. 
If  the  king  had  expressly  granted  to  the  Massachu- 
setts Bay  Company  the  power  to  expel  all  dissen- 
tients and  to  hang  them  if  they  refused  to  stay  ex- 
pelled, the  moral  question  would  have  been  precisely 
the  same.  And,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  whatever  might 
have  been  the  de  jure  position  of  the  Massachusetts 
Colony,  its  de  facto  position  from  1630  to  1660  gave 
it  the  power  it  used,  and  the  legal  consideration  of 
the  matter  is  of  no  importance  except  as  being  of 
antiquarian  interest. 

What  we  want  to  understand  is  not  whether  the 
Colony  had  legal  right  to  expel  Baptists  and  hang 
Quakers.  It  is  not  to  see  whether  Roger  Williams 
and  Anne  Hutchinson  had  legal  right  to  vent  opin- 
ions displeasing  to  the  magistrates.  It  is  to  see 
why  the  Quakers  wanted  to  come  to  New  England, 
to  see  why  the  Puritans  wanted  them  to  stay  away, 
to  understand  why  the  Quakers,  at  the  peril  of  their 
lives,  felt  constrained  still  to  enter  the  forbidden 
ground,  and  to  see  clearly  the  temper  of  mind  of 
the  men  who  felt  justified  in  hanging  by  the  neck 
such  persons  as  disagreed  with  them  on  religious 
matters.  When  we  have  once  done  this,  when  we 
have  got  down  to  the  hearts  and  minds  of  these  peo- 
ple and  seen  what  their  thoughts  and  passions  were, 
when  we  can  see  the  life  of  those  times,  we  shall 


132         THE  PEOPLE   CALLED    QUAKERS. 

have  done  everything  that  will  be  of  any  profit  to 
us  to-day. 

Our  own  judgment  on  the  matter  need  not  be 
pronounced.  It  will  not  make  the  facts  different. 
It  will  not  affect  any  good  purpose.  It  will  not 
make  future  Puritans  more  tolerant  or  future 
Quakers  more  reasonable.  The  facts  themselves 
ought  to  be  enough  to  do  any  good  that  may  bs 
done,  for  they  are  so  simple  that  everybody  who 
has  any  notion  of  righteousness  and  noble  life  will 
be  quite  able  to  form  a  sufficiently  good  judgment 
for  himself. 

It  was  in  the  year  1656  that  the  first  Quakers 
appeared  in  New  England.  In  that  year  Anne  Austin 
and  Mary  Fisher  came  to  Boston  from  the  Barbadoes. 
At  once  the  General  Court,  although  acknowledging 
that  these  women  were  not  transgressors  of  their 
former  law  against  heretics,  considered  that,  being  of 
that  sort  of  people  commonly  called  Quakers,  their 
opinions  were  harmful,  their  books  dangerous  and 
their  presence  in  the  Colony  undesirable.  An  order 
was  therefore  passed  that  their  books  should  be 
burned,  their  persons  put  in  prison  and  the  captain 
who  brought  them  to  Boston  should  as  soon  as  might 
be  take  them  back  to  the  Barbadoes. 

All  this  was  done.  There  appears  to  have  been 
no  especial  proof  that  they  were  Quakers  beyond 
their  plain  manner  of  address,  but  it  is  not  proba- 
ble that  they  denied  the  charge.  They  were  put  in 
prison  until  the  ship  should  be  ready  to  sail  back 
whence  they  had  corne,  and  for  fear  that  they  might 


THE  PEOPLE  CALLED    QUAKERS.        133 

spread  heresy  among  the  people  by  their  conversation 
(their  books  being  burnedj  a  board  was  nailed  ovei1 
their  prison  window  that  they  might  have  commerce 
with  no  one.  In  spite  of  these  precautions,  however 
one  Nicholas  Upsal  felt  so  strongly  the  injustice  of 
the  Quakers'  lot,  and  the  strength  of  the  faith  that 
upheld  them  under  such  trials,  that  he  was  moved  to 
give  the  jailer  money  for  their  subsistence,  and  in- 
deed to  sympathize  greatly  with  them,  as  will  be 
seen  later.  Now  why  did  the  General  Court,  before 
these  Quakers  had  ever  set  foot  on  New  England 
ground,  feel  such  terror  at  their  approach  as  to  take 
order  to  send  them  home  at  once  as  though  they 
had  been  a  bundle  of  plague-infected  rags  ?  For 
very  much  the  same  reason  that  they  would  have 
sent  back  any  bundle  of  plague-infected  rags  which 
they  knew  to  be  on  board  any  ship  coming  to  har- 
bor. They  feared  Quakerism  and  its  advent  into 
New  England.  Quakerism  in  that  day  was  not 
exactly  what  it  is  now. 

As  we  look  back  at  the  seventeenth  century  Quak- 
erism, we  can  see  that  its  essential  points,  the  points 
wherein  it  was  Quakerism  and  not  something  else, 
were  its  recognition  of  the  supreme  authority  of  the 
conscience  and  its  uncompromising  inflexibility  in 
standing  up  for  what  it  held  right.  These  have 
always  been  the  essential  and  necessary  points  of 
Quakerism.  Other  things  are  and  were  at  that  time 
unessential.  But  these  two  points  were  not  ex- 
actly what  the  Puritans  saw.  There  is  no  reason 
for  doubting  that  in  his  own  day  the  seventeenth 


134        THE  PEOPLE   CALLED    QUAKERS. 

century  Quaker  was  looked  upon  as  one  who  would 
destroy  all  religious  system  by  his  elevation  of  the 
inner  light  above  the  Scriptures  (the  fetich  of  the 
century),  and  who  would  destroy  all  civil  govern- 
ment by  the  tenderness  of  his  conscience  and  his 
views  of  liberty.  Justly  or  unjustly,  the  Puritan 
governors  of  the  Massachusetts  Colony  believed  that 
the  spread  of  Quakerism  threatened  the  downfall 
of  the  ecclesiastical  and  civil  Commonwealth  which 
they  had  left  their  homes  to  erect,  and  which  as 
they  held,  it  was  the  will  of  God  that  they  should 
erect.  To  men  of  such  iron  strength  as  the  Puritans 
there  was  no  alternative.  The  only  allowable  out- 
come was  that  Quakerism  must  be  utterly  non-exist- 
ent in  Massachusetts.  Hence  Anne  Austin  and  Mary 
Fisher  were  at  once  sent  back  whence  they  had  come. 
Hardly  had  these  two  Quakers  been  sent  away 
when  more  appeared  in  a  ship  from  London.  These 
were  not  suffered  to  land,  except  to  be  sent  to  prison, 
where  they  remained  for  about  eleven  weeks.  Dur- 
ing this  time  the  General  Court  having  come  to  a 
decision  as  to  the  right  course  to  follow,  proceeded, 
in  default  of  any  existing  legislation  in  the  matter, 
to  pass  a  general  law  against  all  Quakers  who  might 
subsequently  appear  within  their  jurisdiction.  The 
general  purport  of  this  law  was  that  any  Quakers  to 
be  found  in  the  Colony  should  be  at  once  sent  out  of 
it,  that  no  Quaker  books  should  be  allowed  to  exist 
in  the  Colony,  and  that  any  one  who  upheld  Quaker 
opinions  should  be  fined.  Following  out  the  idea  of 
this  law,  the  eight  Quakers  who  had  come  from 


THE  PEOPLE   CALLED    QUAKERS.        135 

London  were  at  once  sent  back  thither  on  the  ship 
in  which  they  had  come. 

This  law  against  the  Quakers  was  in  due  course 
published  throughout  the  town,  as  was  then  the  cus- 
tom. When  the  officials  came  to  the  door  of  Nich- 
olas Upsal,  "  the  good  old  man,  grieved  in  spirit, 
publicly  testified  against  it."  For  this  proceeding 
he  was  at  once  brought  before  the  General  Court 
then  sitting,  when  he  warned  them  that  the  carry- 
ing out  of  this  law  would  be  a  "  Forerunner  of 
judgment  upon  their  country."  Upsal  had  pre- 
viously been  a  person  of  some  consideration  in  the 
town  and  a  church  member,  but  now,  for  some 
time,  he  had  been  considering  the  justice  of  the 
Quaker  cause  and,  coming  to  a  sense  of  the  wrong 
done  by  the  Puritans,  he  had  absented  himself  from 
church.  For  this  absence  and  for  his  protestations 
just  noted,  he  was  fined  twenty-three  pounds  and 
was  (under  the  law  which  he  had  protested  against) 
banished  from  the  Colony.  He  went  away  and 
traveled  through  the  woods  to  Rhode  Island, 
although  being  an  old  man  this  journey  was  rather 
a  hard  thing  for  him.  He  received,  however,  it  was 
said,  help  and  sustenance  from  the  Indians,  who 
wondered  somewhat  at  the  religion  of  the  English, 
which  should  command  them  to  banish  so  cruelly 
those  who  differed  from  them  in  opinion. 

The  next  year  came  to  the  Colony  Anne  Burden 
and  Mary  Dyer  :  the  former  apparently  on  a  matter 
of  business  ;  the  latter,  on  her  way  to  Rhode  Island 
where  her  husband  was  a  person  of  consideration. 


136        THE  PEOPLE  CALLED    QUAKERS. 

These  two  were  both  put  in  prison  at  once.  William 
Dyer  shortly  obtained  the  liberty  of  his  wife,  but 
Anne  Burden  was  sent  back  to  London. 

The  next  to  suffer  at  the  hands  of  the  Puritan  law 
was  Mary  Clarke,  who  came  to  deliver  herself  of  a 
message.  To  this  message,  as  the  Quaker  historian, 
remarks,  "  the  Puritans  turned  their  backs  and  she 
then  turned  her  back  to  them  and  they  smote  it  as 
aforesaid,"  namely,  with  twenty  stripes  of  a  three- 
corded  whip. 

These  early  cases  are  fair  illustrations  of  the 
subsequent  welcome  which  the  Quakers  met  in 
Massachusetts  up  to  the  year  1659.  Imprison- 
ment, fines,  banishment,  stripes  —  on  these  four 
notes  were  rung  a  number  of  changes  varying 
through  a  wide  gamut  of  cruelty  and  oppression. 
We  need  not  detail  all  the  instances.  It  will  be 
enough  to  note  that  these  attempts  to  keep  the 
Quakers  out  were  wholly  unsuccessful.  Not  only 
that :  they  operated  in  precisely  the  wrong  direc- 
tion. Instead  of  being  a  terror  which  should  keep 
the  Quaker  away  from  New  England,  they  were  an 
attraction  which  drew  him  irresistibly  toward  it. 
Of  these  eight  who  had  been  sent  to  London,  some 
"found  themselves  under  a  necessity  of  returning 
again,  being  firmly  persuaded  that  the  Lord  had 
called  them  to  bear  testimony  to  his  truth  in  these 
parts,  having  a  full  assurance  of  faith  that  he  would 
support  them  throughout  whatsoever  trials  and  ex- 
ercises he  should  be  pleased  to  suffer  them  to  be. 
tried  with." 


THE  PEOPLE   CALLED   QUAKERS.        137 

The  existing  laws,  therefore,  proving  inadequate, 
the  General  Court  proceeded  to  pass  a  more  strin- 
gent one,  which  forbade  entertaining  or  concealing 
Quakers,  and  prescribed  severe  penalties  for  a  return 
into  the  jurisdiction  on  the  part  of  Quakers  who  had 
been  banished  from  it.  These  punishments  may 
properly  be  noted.  For  the  first  and  second  offense 
every  male  Quaker  was  to  have  one  of  his  ears  cut 
off  and  be  put  into  the  house  of  correction  until  he 
could  go  away  at  his  own  charge,  while  the  female 
Quaker  was  to  be  severely  whipped  and  similarly 
confined.  In  case  a  Quaker  came  into  the  juris- 
diction a  third  time,  he  or  she  was  to  have  the 
tongue  bored  through  with  a  hot  iron ' "  and  be  sent 
to  the  house  of  correction  close  to  work,  till  they  be 
sent  away  at  their  own  charge."  It  was  further 
ordered  that  Quakers  among  their  own  number 
should  be  dealt  with  in  the  same  way  as  foreign 
Quakers.  An  additional  law  was  passed  the  next 
year  prohibiting  Quaker  meetings  under  severe 
penalties. 

These  penalties  and  punishments  were  vigorously 
inflicted  and  as  zealously  incurred.  The  whole 
strength  of  Puritanism  seemed  to  rise  up,  partty 
with  the  Quakers  to  do  as  they  thought  right,  partly 
with  the  magistrates  to  see  that  the  charge  given 
into  their  hands  was  surely  kept.  The  Puritan 
magistrates  and  ministers  seemed  to  the  Quakers  to 
be  urged  on  by  atrocious  hatred  of  everything  good. 
The  Quakers  in  like  manner  appeared  to  their  per- 
secutors to  be  urged  on  by  the  Devil.  But  Quaker 


138         THE  PEOPLE  CALLED   QUAKERS. 

determination  was  more  than  equal  to  Puritan  rigor, 
and  despite  all  manner  of  harsh  laws  cruelly  inflicted 
more  and  more  Quakers  appeared  within  the  juris- 
diction, and  even  among  the  church  members  them- 
selves not  a  few  appeared  to  be  led  away  by  the 
doctrine  of  the  Inner  Light.  Endicott,  Norton  and 
the  rest  saw  that  the  flock  of  which  they  were  the 
keepers  and  shepherds  was  becoming  infected. 
Their  only  notion  was  to  make  more  stringent  the 
means  for  repression.  Banishment,  whipping,  brand- 
ing, imprisonment,  cutting  off  ears,  selling  into 
slavery,  had  all  been  tried  without  effect.  The  evil 
only  increased.  In  spite  of  the  most  cruel  punish- 
ments, the  Quakers  were  undoubtedly  gaining 
strength. 

In  this  pass  the  magistrates  took  council.  They 
were  petitioned  by  sundry  citizens,  some  of  them  in- 
fluential in  the  Boston  Church,  to  pass  a  law  inflict- 
ing the  death  penalty  on  such  Quakers  as  should 
dare  return  from  banishment.  The  matter  was 
proposed,  put  into  the  form  of  law,  and  finally 
passed  in  the  General  Court,  thirteen  for  it  and 
twelve  against.  So,  remarks  a  Quaker  authority, 
"  it  was  now  resolved  to  prosecute  the  Quakers  to 
death ;  and  all  this  trial  when  it  came  on,  was  only 
whether  they  were  Quakers  (which  they  concluded 
them  to  be  by  their  coming  in  covered)  and  whether 
they  had  been  banished  before  ?  " 

Such  was  the  most  severe  law  passed  by  the  Pu- 
ritans of  Massachusetts  Bay  against  persons  who 
differed  with  them  in  religious  opinion.  Whether  it 


THE  PEOPLE   CALLED    QUAKERS.        139 

was  generally  supposed  that  the  law  would  prove 
effective  in  clearing  the  Colony  of  Quakers  cannot 
be  said.  Certainly  the  steadfastness  with  which  the 
Quakers  had  hitherto  withstood  the  law  and  borne 
their  testimony  could  hardly  have  encouraged  the 
magistracy  to  suppose  that  the  added  severity  of  the 
death  penalty  would  be  of  great  avail.  Katherine 
Scott,  on  being  banished  and  told  they  were  likely  to 
have  a  law  to  hang  her  if  she  came  thither  again, 
had  before  this  replied  gravely,  "If  God  calls  us, 
woe  be  to  us  if  we  come  not ;  and  I  question  not  but 
he  whom  we  love  will  make  us  not  to  count  our 
lives  dear  unto  ourselves  for  the  sake  of  his  name." 
To  which  remark  Endicott  is  said  to  have  answered, 
"  And  we  shall  be  as  ready  to  take  away  your  lives, 
as  ye  shall  be  to  lay  them  down,"  a  remark  hardly 
borne  out  by  subsequent  facts. 

Whatever  the  opinions  about  it  were  the  law 
was  passed  on  the  twentieth  of  October,  1658,  and  it 
only  remained  to  see  how  soon  it  would  have  to  be 
enforced.  In  the  course  of  the  next  year  not  a  few 
persons  were  banished  from  the  jurisdiction  on  the 
penalty  of  death  if  they  should  return.  Two  of 
these,  William  Robinson  and  Marmaduke  Stevenson, 
would  not  depart  from  the  jurisdiction.  A  third, 
Mary  Dyer,  departed  and  returned.  The  three  were 
re-arrested  and  taken  to  prison.  They  were  then  re- 
moved from  prison,  brought  to  court,  examined,  and 
there  condemned  to  be  led  back  to  the  place  from 
whence  they  came,  and  thence  to  the  place  of  execu- 
tion, to  be  hanged  on  the  gallows  until  they  were 


140         THE  PEOPLE   CALLED    QUAKERS. 

dead.  This  sentence  was  carried  into  partial  effect 
on  the  twenty-seventh  of  October,  1659,  on  which 
day  Stevenson  and  Robinson  were  hanged.  Mary 
Dyer  was  reprieved  and  again  banished.  She  again 
returned  and  was  finally  hanged  on  the  Common 
in  Boston,  May  21,  1660.  So  also  was  William 
Leddra  banished  and  finally  hanged,  making  four 
who  had  borne  testimony  with  their  lives.  One 
other,  Wenlock  Christison,  was  also  condemned  to 
death,  and  many  more  were  in  prison,  when  on  the 
twelfth  of  June  all  were  suddenly  released.  We  may 
judge  of  the  feeling  of  the  more  bigoted  people  in  the 
colony,  from  a  passage  in  John  Hull's  diary  of  Decem- 
ber 26,  1660.  He  says,  "The  rest  of  the  Quakers 
had  liberty,  if  they  pleased  to  use  it  to  depart  the 
jurisdiction,  though  some  of  them  capitally  guilty. 
The  good  Lord  pardon  this  timidity  of  spirit  to  exe- 
cute the  sentence  of  God's  holy  law  upon  such  blas- 
phemous persons."  Again,  on  the  fourth  of  June, 
1660,  he  says,  "The  Quakers  are  all  sent  out  of 
prison,  and  Weanlock,  that  was  condemned,  was  once 
more  let  go.  Two  of  them  was  whipped  out  of  the 
jurisdiction  at  a  cart,  and  all  the  rest  went  along  with 
them  ;  and  as  they  came  hereafter  to  be  whipped  hence 
as  vagabonds." 

This  general  delivery  may  be  taken  as  the  begin- 
ning of  the  ebb  tide  in  Puritan  severity.  It  may 
have  been  ordered  in  deference  to  intelligence  from 
London.  Tt  is  certain  that  some  time  later  came  a 
mandate  from  King  Charles  II.,  now  lately  restored 
to  authority,  forbidding  further  procedure,  and 


THE  PEOPLE   CALLED    QUAKERS.        141 

brought  over  from  London  to  Boston  by  one  Samuel 
Shattuck,  himself  a  Quaker.  He  had  suffered  at 
the  hands  of  the  Massachusetts  Bay  Company,  but 
had  taken  a  much  more  effective  way  of  stopping 
the  severities  than  that  to  which  many  of  his  fellow- 
sufferers  had  felt  themselves  constrained.  Or  again, 
it  may  be  taken  as  showing  that  the  magistracy  had 
ventured  farther  than  the  good  sense  of  the  people 
could  stand,  and  that  therefore  in  deference  to 
popular  opinion  they  retreated  from  the  step  they 
had  taken.  Doubtless  both  of  these  causes  oper- 
ated ;  no  one  can  properly  ascribe  the  result  to  one 
rather  than  to  the  other. 

Such  was  the  persecution  of  the  Quakers  by  the 
authorities  of  the  Massachusetts  Bay  Colony.  It  is 
true  that  the  persecution  did  not  end  here.  For 
almost  twenty  years  more  severities  of  one  sort  or 
another  were  visited  upon  such  Quakers  as  were 
found  in  the  jurisdiction,  but  they  were  but  repeti- 
tions of  the  punishments  which  we  have  already 
noted,  prosecuted  with  more  or  less  vigor  and  atro- 
city. The  persecutions  which  we  have  already 
related  will  serve  to  give  a  general  idea  of  the  whole 
episode. 

It  is  an  episode  which  has  attracted  much  atten- 
tion and  one  on  which  there  are  divers  opinions.  It 
seems  to  be  a  question  upon  which  it  is  singularly 
difficult  for  one  to  be  unprejudiced.  Certain  it  is 
that  those  whose  sympathies  lie  with  the  Puritans 
are  led  to  pronounce  the  Quaker  of  the  seventeenth 
century  an  essentially  coarse,  blustering,  conceited, 


142        THE  PEOPLE   CALLED    QUAKERS. 

disagreeable,  impudent  fanatic.  While  those  who 
look  upon  the  question  from  the  Quaker  point  of 
view  hold  Endicutt  to  be  an  impetuous  and  relentless 
inquisitor,  and  Norton  a  fierce  promoter  of  the 
persecution,  and  remark  that  "they  resolved  on  their 
[the  Quakers']  extermination,  even  as  Elisha  and 
Jehu  conspired  to  exterminate  the  house  of  Ahab." 
Massachusetts  men  have  worthily  appreciated,  and 
well  may  they  admire,  the  devotion  and  strength  of 
their  Puritan  ancestors.  There  have  never  been 
lacking  in  the  Bay  State  noble  and  scholarly  men 
who  should  keep  alive  in  the  hearts  of  the  children 
the  deeds  of  the  fathers.  We  admire  the  New 
England  Puritans  for  their  self-sacrifice,  their  patient 
strength  in  bearing  adversity  and  overcoming  diffi- 
culty ;  for  their  pure  idealism  in  conceiving  a  godly 
order  of  things,  their  resolute  earnestness  in  stand- 
ing firm  to  that  idea  through  all  obstacles  ;  for  their 
wise  forethought  in  laying  what  has  proved  to  be  a 
broad  and  firm  foundation  for  a  great  nation.  Self- 
sacrifice  and  resolution,  idealism  and  strength  of 
purpose  are  noble  qualities.  But  it  is  rare  in  this 
world  to  find  idealism  which  has  not  some  touch  of 
fanaticism,  or  resolution  which  has  not  some  touch  of 
intolerance.  When  wisdom  fails  an  idealist  and  leaves 
him  a  prey  to  phantasms,  we  call  him  a  fanatic. 
And  when  wisdom  fails  a  resolute  man  so  that  right 
appears  to  him  to  be  wrong,  he  becomes  what  we  call 
intolerant.  Now  that  the  Puritan  character  had  in 
it  the  element  of  intolerant  fanaticism  cannot  be 
denied  by  one  who  remembers  Anne  Hutchinson, 


THE  PEOPLE    CALLED    QUAKERS.        143 

Roger  Williams,  John  Clarke,  Mary  Dyer  and  John 
Norton.  It  is  the  same  strength  which  is  their  glory 
that  is  their  shame.  Lacking  one  they  would  have 
lacked  the  other.  Had  not  the  Puritans  been  men 
who  came  to  be  willing  to  maintain  their  ideals  even 
by  hanging  innocent  men  and  women,  they  would 
have  submitted  at  once  to  oppression  in  England  and 
never  been  heard  of  there  or  elsewhere. 

Let  us  regret  this  if  we  desire.  But  let  us  also 
recognize  that  it  was  necessary.  It  was  the  very 
strength  of  purpose  and  earnestness  of  resolution 
that  enabled  Winthrop  to  cross  the  ocean  which 
caused  Endicott  to  hang  the  Quakers.  It  was  the 
same  idealism  and  again  the  same  earnestness  of 
resolution  that  led  John  Cotton  to  quit  his  church  in 
Boston  and  compelled  Cotton  Mather  to  persecute 
the  witches.  In  the  conditions  of  life  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  one  could  not  have  existed  without 
the  other.  Given  the  conditions  of  life  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  and,  knowing  the  Massachusetts 
Puritans,  one  might  have  predicted  the  hanging  of 
Quakers  and  witches.  If  we  regret  this,  let  us  regret 
it  honestly.  Let  us  regret  that  the  Puritans  were 
men.  Let  us  regret  that  they  were  not  perfect. 

But  if  we  thus  qualify  our  admiration  of  our  Puri- 
tan ancestors,  if  we  learn  to  admire  them  more  nobly 
because  more  truly,  we  must  not  forget  to  try  to  see 
as  truly  what  was  the  character  of  their  opponents 
in  this  struggle.  We  may  justly  admire  the  bravery 
and  prowess  of  men  who  withdrew  from  persecution 
to  found  a  State  in  a  New  World.  But  we  cannot 


144         THE  PEOPLE  CALLED    QUAKERS. 

but  think  it  a  higher  bravery  and  a  higher  prowess, 
which  conquers  persecution  by  endurance  and  there- 
by remodels  a  nation  in  an  Old  World.  Surely  the 
Puritans  did  a  great  thing  in  leaving  their  homes 
and  founding  New  England.  But  it  was  on  the 
whole  a  greater  thing  when  the  Quakers  staid  at 
home  and  went  to  prison  by  the  thousand  for  con- 
science sake  and  even  crossed  the  water  that  they 
might  be  hanged  by  the  neck  as  a  testimony. 

True,  it  was  doubtless  not  so  practical  a  course ; 
one  would  hardly  try  to  argue  that  the  same  result 
might  not  have  been  attained  in  another  way.  But 
no  one  can  consider  the  matter  well  and  deny  that  it 
was  higher,  that  is  to  say,  more  divine.  It  is  hardly 
for  those  who  look  for  comfort  and  truth  to  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  to  deny  our  sympathy  and 
admiration  to  those  of  whom  it  might  have  been  said, 
"  Blessed  are  they  which  are  persecuted  for  righteous- 
ness' sake." 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE    FIRST    INDIAN    WARS. 

WHEN  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  arrived  in  New 
England,  there  ranged  through  the  forests  of 
all  New  England  forty  or  fifty  thousand  Indians. 
They  were  living  in  a  very  low  grade  of  savage  life, 
and  had  hardly  made  the  beginning  of  social  organ- 
ization. The  students  of  race  and  language  have 
found  it  convenient  to  divide  under  several  distinct 
groups  the  Indians  who  were  at  home  there.  As 
new  dialects  or  languages  are  discovered,  the  number 
of  these  groups  enlarges.  But,  at  last,  Mr.  Horatio 
Hale  has  presented  the  supposition,  which  is  probably 
well  founded,  that  one  or  two  families  may  be  sepa- 
rated from  their  tribe,  that  the  parents  may  die 
before  the  children  have  well  learned  the  language, 
and  that  thus  a  new  language  may  come  into  exist- 
ence. It  may  be,  then,  that  tribes,  so-called,  which 
have  languages  wholly  unlike,  still  have  a  common 
origin. 

Seven  distinct  groups,  however,  have  been  well 
made  out,  of  the  Indians  of  the  United  States,  differ- 
ing widely  in  language,  in  customs,  as  in  government 
and  social  order,  but  presenting  some  striking  analo- 
gies, and  quite  different  from  the  other  great  races 


146  THE  FIRST  INDIAN   WARS. 

of  men.  Of  these,  the  Indians  of  New  England 
belong  to  what  is  known  as  the  Algonkin  family, 
which  ranged  from  the  St.  Lawrence  as  far  as  our 
State  of  North  Carolina,  and  far  to  the  northwest. 
Of  this  great  group,  the  New  England  Indians  were 
among  the  lowest  representatives,  and  the  race,  as  a 
whole,  is  inferior  to  the  Cherokee  group,  the  Iroquois 
group,  and  others  of  the  North  American  family. 
The  noble  Indian  of  poetry  and  romance,  is  never  an 
Indian  of  the  New  England  tribes,  unless  the  author 
who  describes  him  is  "  low  down  "  in  his  ignorance. 

The  first  explorers,  like  Gosnold,  were  sadly  afraid 
of  these  savages.  But  the  Pilgrims  found  a  friend 
in  Samoset,  and  made  a  favorable  treaty  with  Massa- 
soit.  Winthrop  and  his  friends  had  no  more  difficulty 
with  the  Indians  at  the  head  of  the  Bay.  A  sm;.ll 
tribe  of  these,  living  round  the  "  Great  Hills,"  which 
are  now  known  as  the  Blue  Hills,  in  Milton,  Quincy 
and  Braintree,  took  the  name  of  these  hills  and  gave 
it  to  the  bay  which  is  shut  in,  in  a  manner,  on  the 
east,  by  Nahant  and  Nantasket.  Chuset,  or  Wachu- 
set,  meant  "  a  hill  "  in  their  dialect,  and  Matta  meant 
"  great."  Mattachusetts  meant  the  "  great  hills." 
And  by  the  name  of  Mattachusetts  Bay,  with  double 
t,  is  the  colony  called  in  its  first  charter  and  in  other 
legal  documents.  But  the  harshness  of  the  t  yielded 
to  the  sibilant  s  immediately,  and  except  in  legal 
instruments  and  on  the  coins,  that  name  was  never 
known. 

Among  a  number  of  little  tribes  who  made  up  the 
forty  or  fifty  thousand  native  New  Eriglanders,  the 


THE  FIRST  INDIAN   WAR 8.  147 

Pequots  of  Connecticut  and  the  Narragansetts  of 
Rhode  Island  were  perhaps  the  strongest.  Certainly 
they  were  the  strongest  known  to  the  Massachusetts 
men  of  the  first  generation.  They  had  taken  the 
single  advance  toward  civilization  made  among  any 
of  the  Indians,  in  their  device  for  money,  constructed 
from  shells.  They  were  on  ill  terms  with  each  other, 
the  Narragansetts  dreading  the  Pequots,  who  were  a 
more  cruel  and  warlike  tribe  than  they. 

With  the  Indians  of  the  Bay  or  of  Plymouth  Col- 
ony, the  new  settlers  of  Massachusetts  had  no  quarrel 
or  difficulty.  But  so  soon  as  they  heard  of  the  beauti- 
ful valley  of  the  Connecticut,  and  began  to  make 
settlements  there,  they  found  that  their  relations 
with  the  Pequots  were  more  critical.  The  Pequots 
ranged  from  the  Pawcatuck  River,  near  the  present 
western  boundary  of  Rhode  Island,  at  least  as  far  as 
the  Thames  River  in  Connecticut,  and  when  thev 
were  on  their  excursions  of  war  they  claimed  a 
farther  right.  They  thus  held  the  shore  of  Long 
Island  Sound.  Again  and  again  they  attacked  fisher- 
men and  others  in  the  small  vessels  which  went 
round  from  the  Bay  to  the  Connecticut  River,  until 
the  little  handful  of  settlers  on  that  river  found  that 
their  very  existence  was  threatened.  There  was  a 
population  there  of  about  eight  hundred  whites ; 
they  were  thirty  miles  from  the  Pequots,  and  there 
need  have  been  no  interference.  But  the  Pequots 
could  not  resist  attacking  the  different  vessels  which 
passed  from  the  Bay  to  the  river  and  back  again. 
Governor  Vane  attempted  to  awe  them  by  an  expe- 


148  THE  FIRST  INDIAN   WARS. 

dition  which  he  sent  out  under  Endicott.  Endicott 
killed  thirteen  Pequots,  wounded  forty,  collected  a 
quantity  of  corn,  burned  some  houses  and  canoes, 
but  he  did  not  intimidate  the  enemy,  and  certainly  did 
not  conciliate  them.  On  the  other  hand,  they  began 
to  make  attacks  on  the  Connecticut  settlers,  and 
before  the  winter  of  1636  was  over  they  had  killed 
thirty  of  the  English  and  carried  away  some  captives. 

The  Connecticut  settlers  sent  to  the  Bay  for  aid, 
a  special  session  of  the  Massachusetts  General  Court 
was  held,  and  a  force  of  ninety  men  came  from 
Massachusetts,  and,  under  Mason  and  Underbill, 
at  once  attacked  the  enemy.  Mason  passed  up  and 
down  the  Sound  in  his  little  fleet  of  three  vessels. 
He  knew  that  the  enemy  expected  to  be  attacked  on 
their  western  frontier,  and  boldly  determined,  there- 
fore, to  march  through  the  Narragansett  country  and 
surprise  them.  He  landed  his  men  in  Narragansett 
Bay  at  the  foot  of  what  is  now  called  Tower  Hill. 
He  then  marched  twenty  miles  westward,  across  our 
State  of  Rhode  Island,  invested  a  Narragansett  fort 
there,  lest  intelligence  should  be  sent  to  his  enemy, 
and  then  marched  fifteen  miles  more,  to  the  neighbor- 
hood of  the  Pequot  fort. 

This  was  built  in  the  Indian  fashion,  with  a  circu- 
lar palisade  of  trunks  of  trees  twelve  feet  high. 
Within,  arranged  along  two  lanes,  were  seventy 
wigwams,  covered  with  matting  and  thatch.  There 
were  but  two  passages  through  the  palisade,  opposite 
each  other.  The  surprise  was  complete.  Mason 
entered,  with  sixteen  men,  on  one  side,  Underbill  did 


THE  FIRST  INDIAN   WARS.  149 

the  like  on  the  other.  Mason  snatched  a  live  brand 
from  a  wigwam,  and  threw  it  on  a  thatched  roof ; 
Underhill  set  fire  with  a  train  of  powder.  The 
village  was  in  flames,  and  in  an  hour  was  destroyed. 
As  the  poor  wretches  fled  from  their  covert,  the  Eng- 
lish shot  them  down.  If  there  were  any  stragglers 
they  fell  into  the  hands  of  Mason's  Narragansett 
allies,  who  had  kept  cautiously  from  the  conflict,  but 
had  no  mercy  on  the  fugitives.  The  accounts  of 
the  loss  of  the  Pequots  vary,  but  it  is  clear  that 
more  than  four  hundred  of  the  poor  creatures  per- 
ished, and  some  estimates  make  up  seven  hundred. 

Mason's  whole  force  had  been  seventy-seven  Eng- 
lishmen, sixty  Mohegans,  and  four  hundred  Narra- 
gansetts  and  Niantics,  but  his  Indian  allies  had 
declined  to  join  in  the  attack.  Of  the  English  more 
than  a  quarter  were  wounded,  and  two  were  killed. 

Mason  marched  at  once  toward  another  Indian 
fort,  and  met  on  his  way  its  garrison  of  three  hun- 
dred men.  He  kept  them  at  bay,  until  happily  he  saw 
his  vessels  approaching  from  the  east.  He  dispatched 
the  greater  part  of  his  forces  for  the  protection  of 
the  Connecticut  settlers,  and  with  the  rest  returned 
to  Narragansett  Bay  and  home.  The  remnant  of 
the  Pequots  determined  to  seek  safety  in  flight. 
They  tried  to  join  themselves  to  the  Mohawks 
on  the  Hudson,  but  in  fact  broke  up  into  a  mere 
wreck  of  stragglers,  many  of  whom  were  put  to 
death  by  the  jealousy  of  the  neighboring  tribes. 
Nobody  had  any  mercy  for  the  Pequots,  now  that 
thev  had  been  beaten.  Sassacus,  their  chief,  was 


150  THE  FIRST  INDIAN   WARS. 

killed  by  the  Mohawks,  to  whom  he  had  fled.  By 
one  sudden  blow,  the  colonists  of  Massachusetts  and 
their  friends  had  broken  the  most  powerful  nation  of 
the  natives,  and  had  struck  awe  upon  them  all. 

"  The  land  had  thus  rest  for  forty  years."  Such 
is  Dr.  Palfrey's  apt  quotation  in  describing  the 
results  of  this  cruel  victory.  It  was  not  till  1675  that 
any  serious  danger  was  apprehended  by  Massachu- 
setts from  the  Indian  tribes.  That  danger  then  came 
from  the  determined  Philip,  the  son  of  the  Massasoit 
with  whom  Winslow  and  Bradford  made  the  first 
treaty. 

When  a  New  England  man  speaks  of  the  heroes 
of  '75,  he  generally  means  the  men  of  1775  —  who 
fired  the  shots  at  Concord  "  which  echoed  round  the 
world,"  —  or  those  at  Bunker  Hill,  from  which 
"  Democracy  started  on  its  march,"  over  the  route 
by  which  these  echoes  had  gone  before. 

But  there  are  other  "  heroes  of  '75,"  who  do  not 
appear  upon  this  roll  of  honor.  They  are  the  heroes 
of  sixteen  hundred  and  seventy -fire,  just  one  century 
before  Lexington  and  Concord.  New  England  was 
in  danger  then  of  being  wiped  off  the  map  — 
to  have  the  geographers  write  again  the  savage 
names  of  Norumbega  and  of  the  Aberginians. 
Every  man  in  New  England  was  scouring  his  mus- 
ket, and  filling  his  powder-horn.  And  the  great- 
grandfathers were  learning  the  lessons  of  warfare 
which  the  great-grandsons  put  in  use  a  hundred 
years  after. 


THE  FIRST  INDIAN   WARS.  151 

In  the  beginning  Massasoit  had  gladly  accepted 
English  protection  against  the  more  powerful  Indians 
on  the  West,  —  the  Pequots,  and  those  whom  they 
called  Mohawks  or  Man-eaters,  as  well  as  those  of 
the  Northeast,  whom  they  called  Tarrantines.  When 
Governor  Bradford  of  Plymouth  proposed  to  Massa- 
soit, a  chief  whom  he  thought  much  more  important 
than  he  was,  to  become  an  ally  of  King  James, 
Massasoit  said  he  would  gladly  become  his  subject 
and  he  put  his  hand  to  a  paper  to  say  so.  How 
much  he  understood  what  he  said  or  signed,  is,  indeed, 
doubtful.  He  probably  did  understand  that  if  he 
signed  this  paper,  the  English  would  be  courteous  to 
him  and  would  protect  him. 

They  were  courteous  to  him,  and  they  would  have 
protected  him  and  his,  had  they  needed  any  protec- 
tion. The  terrible  punishment  of  the  Pequots  showed 
him  and  his  what  the  English  soldiers  could  do. 

But  a  new  generation  grew  up,  both  of  white  men 
and  of  Indians.  Some  of  the  whites,  under  the 
lead  of  such  men  as  Eliot,  the  apostle  to  the  Indians, 
were  trying  to  civilize  and  Christianize  them.  Most 
of  the  whites  despised  and  hated  them.  When  the 
college  was  founded  at  Cambridge,  one  object  was  to 
train  the  Indian  youth.  One  of  the  college  buildings 
was  called  the  Indian  College.  And,  among  other 
young  men  of  Indian  blood  who  learned  something 
there  of  Christianity  and  of  civilized  arts  was  a  young 
man  named  Sausaman. 

Among  the  Indians  who  did  not  go  to  Harvard 
College  and  did  not  want  to,  was  a  son  of  the  Massa- 


152  THE  FIRST  INDIAN   WARS. 

soit  who  had  so  readily  made  himself  a  subject  of 
King  James.  This  son  was  named  Philip,  and  he  is 
the  Philip  who  is  generally  called  "  King  Philip.'* 
The  laws  which  the  English  had  made  to  forbid  the 
sale  of  guns  and  powder  to  the  Indians  were  not 
carefully  enforced.  Philip  and  other  Indian  young 
men  learned  how  to  •  use  guns  as  well  as  their  white 
neighbors.  And  Philip,  after  the  death  of  his 
father  Massasoit  and  of  his  brother  Alexander,  took 
some  pains  to  bring  together  the  Indians  of  his  own 
tribe,  in  the  southeastern  parts  of  what  is  now 
Massachusetts,  and  to  make  preparations,  as  if  for 
war.  He  and  his  Indians  lived  on  the  north  and  east 
of  Narragansett  Bay.  His  own  home,  so  far  as  he 
had  any,  was  at  Mount  Hope,  near  the  site  of  the  city 
of  Fall  River. 

The  Government  of  Plymouth  inquired  about  these 
preparations  for  war,  and  Philip  admitted  that  he 
was  making  them  ;  but  he  said  that  it  was  in  fear  of 
the  Narragansetts  on  the  other  side  of  the  Bay.  In 
truth,  he  was  probably  an  ambitious  young  man, 
who  was  learning  a  good  deal  from  the  whites,  and 
saw  the  need  of  closer  organization,  if  his  own  people 
were  not  to  be  driven  out  of  their  old  country. 
When  the  Plymouth  governor  sent  to  meet  him,  in 
the  year  1670,  Philip  appeared  with  a  military  force ; 
nor  would  he  confer  with  the  commissioners  sent 
from  Plymouth  and  Massachusetts,  unless  his  escort 
might  come  with  him.  At  that  time  he  was  com- 
pelled to  give  up  seventy  guns,  and  to  make  promises 
of  peace.  But  these  promises  bound  him  but  little. 


THE  FIRST  INDIAN  WARS.  153 

He  spent  the  next  four  years  in  going  from  place  to 
place,  to  show  the  Indians  of  different  neighborhoods 
how  weak  the  English  were,  and  how  much  scattered, 
and  to  arrange  a  common  plan  for  exterminating 
them  on  the  same  day.  For  this  they  were  all  to 
provide  firearms  and  ammunition,  and  they  were  to 
strike,  all  together,  in  the  spring  of  1676. 

If  Philip  could  have  kept  himself  in  check  till  then, 
he  might  have  succeeded.  But  he  was  his  own 
worst  enemy.  When  John  Sausaman  left  college  he 
became  a  schoolmaster  at  the  Christian  settlement 
of  Indians  at  Natick.  But  having  misbehaved  here, 
he  left  the  Christian  Indians,  and  became  Philip's 
"  prime  minister,"  if  one  may  use  such  a  phrase.  In 
this  utter  savagedom,  as  civilization  advanced,  Philip 
had  to  have  some  one  who  could  write  his  letters  for 
him.  So  he  employed  this  Harvard  graduate.  But. 
on  the  other  hand,  John  Eliot  could  not  bear  to  lose 
him  from  his  work.  He  persuaded  him  to  return  to 
Natick,  where  he  publicly  expressed  his  repentance 
for  leaving  it,  and  became  a  preacher.  In  1674  he 
made  a  visit  among  Philip's  people,  and  then  became 
sure  that  Philip  was  making  a  great  plot  against  the 
English.  He  revealed  this  plot  to  the  English  gov- 
ernor. Probably  some  one  reported  this  to  Philip, 
and  the  report  cost  John  Sausaman  his  life.  The 
evidence  of  his  murder  was  clear.  Three  Indians 
were  convicted  and  hanged  for  it  in  Plymouth  in 
June,  1675. 

This  was  really  the  beginning  of  "Philip's  War." 
On  a  hot  summer  afternoon  in  what  was  then  June, 


154  THE  FIRST  INDIAN  WARS. 

—  we  should  call  the  day  the  second  of  July',*  —  a 
tired  and  dusty  messenger  rode  over  Boston  Neck 
and  found  his  way  to  the  house  of  Governor  Lever- 
ett.  He  brought  a  letter  which  Winslow,  Governor 
of  Plymouth,  had  sent  that  morning  from  Marshfield 
in  Plymouth  County.  It  told  of  what  was  the  out- 
break of  war.  Philip  and  his  men  had  driven  the 
English  of  Swansea  into  their  block-house,  and  had 
killed  their  cattle. 

It  is  said  that  there  was  a  curious  superstition 
among  the  Indians  that  that  side  would  be  beaten 
which  killed  the  first  man.  It  certainly  appears  as  if 
Philip  and  his  men  tried,  by  every  provocation,  to 
make  the  English  begin. 

All  Boston  was  in  a  ferment.  The  train-bands  were 
mustered,  and  Captain  Thomas  Mosely  announced 
that  he  would  raise  a  company  of  volunteers.  He 
was  a  favorite,  as  he  deserved  to  be,  and  he  enlisted, 
at  once,  a  hundred  and  ten  men. 

It  is  to  be  remembered  that  it  was  nearly  forty 
years  since  the  men  of  New  England  had  been  engaged 
in  war.  Their  fathers  had  come  over  from  England 
with  fears  of  the  natives  which  the  event  had  not 
justified.  For  they  proved  to  be  comparatively  few 
in  number,  almost  without  government  and  very 
poorly  armed.  The  arrival  of  the  whites  was,  in  fact, 
a  blessing  to  them  all.  For  it  gave  them  better  tools, 
better  weapons,  better  fishhooks  and  conveniences  for 
hunting,  and  better  clothes.  When  they  had  more 
skins  than  they  wanted  or  more  corn,  it  gave  them 

*  The  change  of  style  makes  June  21,1675,  into  July  2. 


THE  FIRST  INDIAN  WARS.  155 

a  good  market  in  which  to  sell  their  surplus.  They 
observed,  at  once,  that  after  their  squaws  had  iron 
hoes,  their  crops  of  corn  increased  many  fold.  But. 
after  the  very  beginning  the  English  were  foolish 
enough,  as  has  been  said,  to  sell  them  guns,  powder 
and  lead.  They  learned  at  once  how  to  cast  their 
own  bullets.  Just  at  this  time  by  a  very  easy  tran- 
sition, the  old  matchlock  was  passing  into  a  flint- 
lock. It  may  well  be  that  a  flint  arrow  head  has  often 
been  used  to  strike  fire  in  the  powder  pan  of  the 
weapon  which  was  assuming  the  form  of  our  musket.* 
After  the  alarm  started  by  Philip  it  was  easy  to  pro- 
hibit again  the  sale  of  powder,  but  the  Indians  had 
no  difficulty  in  buying  it  from  the  Dutch  traders  on 
the  Hudson,  or  the  French  in  Canada. 

When  the  alarm  from  Swansea  came  to  Boston,  the 
people  mustered  with  spirit  but  without  experience  in 
war.  Mosely  had  perhaps  had  some  such  career  as  a 
buccaneer,  as  Mr.  Stevenson  gives  to  his  imagined 
Blackbeard  in  the  next  century.  There  was,  however, 
a  regular  organization  of  "  train  bands,"  and  the 
captains  of  these  train  bands  were  supposed  to  have 
some  skill  in  war.  The  train  bands  of  Boston  and 
the  neighboring  towns  were  directed  to  furnish  one 
hundred  able  soldiers  to  meet  in  Boston  on  the  2oth, 
each  with  his  arms  complete  and  his  knapsack,  ready 
to  march.  Daniel  Dennison  was  appointed  com- 
mander-m-chief  of  all  the  forces  of  the  colony,  Dan- 
iel Henchman,  captain  of  one  hundred  infantry,  and 
Thomas  Prentice,  captain  of  the  horse.  Mosely,  with 

*  It  is  not  known  to  whom  the  invention  of  the  flint-lock  is  due. 


156  THE  FIRST  INDIAN  WARS. 

his  volunteers,  overtook  the  regular  soldiers  on  the 
second  day,  and  all  of  them  arrived  at  Swansea  in 
forty-eight  hours  from  the  time  they  left  Boston. 
They  drove  the  Indians  back  from  Swansea  to  Mt. 
Hope,  then  they  crossed  into  Rhode  Island  and  this 
show  of  force  compelled  the  powerful  tribe  of  Narra- 
gansetts  to  make  a  treaty,  in  which  they  promised 
that  they  also  would  make  war  against  Philip. 
Returning  to  Massachusetts,  Henchman  pressed  Philip 
so  closely  that  he  hardly  escaped.  He  did  leave  his 
women  and  children.  His  powder  was  almost  gone,  so 
that  this  escape  was  naturally  regarded  as  a  great 
misfortune. 

Meanwhile  all  the  western  towns  were  in  danger, 
and  towns  within  thirty  miles  of  Boston  were  then 
called  western  towns.  The  governor  of  Connecticut 
was  raising  troops  to  act  against  the  Indians  on  Con- 
necticut River,  and  a  company  of  soldiers  was  raised 
in  Boston  to  support  him.  A  company  of  the  finest 
young  men  of  Essex  County,  called  the  "  flower  of 
Essex,"  were  surprised  by  Indians  at  Bloody  Brook  at 
Deerfield,  and  almost  every  man  was  killed.  The 
popular  fury  rose  against  John  Eliot  and  Gookin,the 
approved  friends  of  the  Indians,  and  their  little  col- 
ony of  Christian  Indians  at  Natick  was  removed  to 
Deer  Island  in  Boston  Harbor,  to  keep  them  from 
the  neighborhood  of  the  enemy.  Between  July  and 
December  of  that  year,  the  excitement  in  the  four 
colonies  was  intense,  and  the  news  of  every  week  was 
that  of  some  new  massacre.  Almost  all  the  men  of  the 
fighting  age  were  somewhere  in  the  field.  But  Philip 


THE  FIRST  INDIAN  WARS.  157 

himself  was  out  of  sight,  though  his  presence  and 
counsel  could  be  inferred  as  one  English  village  after 
another  on  the  frontier  was  burned. 

It  was  then  that  the  commissioners  of  the  United 
Colonies  determined  to  carry  the  war  against  the  Nar- 
ragansetts.  It  seemed  certain  that  they  supplied 
Philip  and  his  men  with  powder.  It  was  freely 
charged  that  their  young  men  had  been  seen  in  Philip's 
war  parties.  Probably  this  was  true,  for  there  was  no 
such  strictness  of  government  among  the  Narragan- 
setts,  that  they  could  have  helped  this  if  they  would, 
and  the  evidence  is  strong  that  they  did  not  want  to 
help  it.  In  the  summer,  as  I  have  said,  they  had 
agreed  in  their  treaty  that  they  would  make  war 
against  Philip,  but  they  had  not  done  so.  At  a  later 
period  Canonchet,  their  sachem,  had  agreed  to  give 
up,  within  ten  days,  the  hostile  Indians  under  their 
protection;  this  also  they  failed  to  do.  Five  days 
afterward,  therefore,  the  commissioners  of  New  Eng- 
land ordered  an  additional  force  of  a  thousand  men, 
to  serve  against  the  Narragansetts.  Governor.  Wins- 
low,  of  Plymouth,  was  put  in  command.  The  Narra- 
gansetts made  no  offer  of  submission  and  no  pretense 
of  fulfilling  Canonchet's  agreement.  The  troops 
raised  by  Massachusetts  and  Plymouth  met,  therefore, 
at  Wickford,  in  Rhode  Island,  early  in  December. 
On  the  thirteenth  of  that  month  they  learned  of  the 
arrival  of  Treat  of  Connecticut  at  Bull's  Fort  in  Pet- 
tyquamscott,  not  far  away.  From  this  point  Mason 
had  marched  in  his  successful  enterprise  against  the 
Pequots  forty  years  before.  Bull's  Block-House  gave 


158  THE  FIRST  INDIAN  WARS. 

the  name  to  "  Tower  Hill,"  which  will  be  remembered 
by  many  readers  as  now  overlooking  the  watering 
place  of  "  Narragansett  Pier."  Winslow's  force  con- 
sisted of  eight  companies  of  foot  and  one  of  horse. 
Treat  had  five  companies  of  English  and  fifty  Mohegan 
allies.  The  whole  army  was  about  one  thousand 
men.  Unfortunately  for  them  the  block-house  at 
Bull's  had  been  burned  down  a  few  days  before,  so 
that  they  found  themselves  assembled  in  severe 
December  weather,  without  any  protection  from  the 
storms. 

All  the  more  promptly  they  moved  to  the  attack 
of  the  Narragansetts'  principal  fort  and  settlement. 
This  was  about  nine  miles  from  them  in  a  direct 
line,  but  their  march  to  it  must  have  been  thirteen 
or  fourteen  miles.  They  started  early  Sunday  morn- 
ing the  nineteenth  of  December.  It  shows  that  they 
were  good  campaigners,  that  they  arrived  in  the 
neighborhood  of  their  enemy  in  an  eight  hours' 
march.  For  a  part  of  the  time  at  least  the  snow  was 
falling,  and  through  deep  snow  the  men  marched  on. 

The  enemy  whom  they  sought  were  well  fortified 
on  an  island,  which  was  and  is  wholly  surrounded  by 
a  swamp.  On  the  inner  side  of  this  swamp  they  had 
protected  themselves  still  further  by  rows  of  pali- 
sades. Whoever  entered  the  inclosure  did  so  by 
passing  over  a  bridge  which  was  made  of  a  single 
tree,  so  felled  as  to  cross  the  water,  and  this  little 
bridge  was  covered  by  a  block-house.  Captain  John- 
son, of  Roxbury,  led  the  attack  at  the  head  of  his 
company.  They  were  hotly  received,  and  on  the 


THE  FIRST  INDIAN   WARS.  159 

bridge  Johnson  fell  dead.*  In  the  fight,  six  of  the 
thirteen  English  captains  were  killed  or  mortally 
wounded  by  the  well-directed  fire  of  the  Indians. 
But,  for  the  English,  there  was  really  no  retreat. 
With  them  the  alternative  was  literally  "  to  conquer 
or  to  die."  Every  man  there  knew  that  he  was  a 
long  day's  march  distant  from  any  food  except  that  in 
this  encampment  and  from  all  other  supplies.  They 
knew  as  well  that  the  snow  had  been  gathering  be- 
hind them.  Whatever  their  ignorance  of  arms  six 
months  before,  they  had  been  initiated  by  those  six 
months  into  the  mysteries  of  forest  warfare.  A  battle 
followed,  which  lasted  for  two  or  three  hours,  with 
various  success.  Once  the  assailants  entered  the 
fort  and  were  beaten  out.  On  a  second  entrance  the 
English  were  so  successful  that  they  were  able  to 
set  fire  to  the  wigwams  within  the  inclosure,  thus 
following  the  strategy  of  Mason  forty  years  before. 
The  destruction  was  so  complete  that  the  conquerors 
could  not  even  stay  on  the  battle  ground.  Captain 
Church,  who  was  present  —  the  same  who  killed 
Philip  the  next  year  —  says  he  deprecated  the  de- 
struction of  the  wigwams.  Each  of  them  was  well 
stocked  with  corn  for  the  winter,  and,  had  the}-  been 
saved,  the  English  army  could  have  rested  and  re- 
cruited itself  on  the  spot.  As  it  was,  they  were 
obliged  to  return  at  once  to  Petty quamscott  with 
their  wounded,  of  whom  there  were  one  hundred  and 
fifty.  Seventy  of  their  number  had  been  killed,  so 

*At  this  distant  time  I  put  on  record  this  achievement  of  my  own  ancestor, 
with  a  certain  serious  interest,  the  more  willingly,  because,  so  fur  as  I  know,  he  has 
no  other  memorial.  E.  E.  II. 


160  THE  FIRST  INDIAN  WARS. 

that  they  had  sustained  the  terrible  loss  of  nearly 
one  quarter  of  those  who  took  the  field.  Of  the 
three  thousand  five  hundred  Narragansett  warriors, 
it  was  said  that  seven  hundred  were  killed  and  three 
hundred  were  mortally  wounded. 

This  critical  battle  entirely  broke  the  force  of  the 
Narragansetts,  and  indeed  practically  ended  the  war 
against  Philip.  It  was  not  until  the  next  summer 
that  he  was  brought  to  bay  and  killed  ;  but  from  this 
moment  his  forces  were  divided,  his  only  allies  en- 
tirely broken  and  his  best  source  of  supply  taken  away. 

The  antiquarian  of  to-day  who  visits  the  site 
of  the  Swamp  Fort  finds  a  pretty  Rhode  Island 
farm.  If  he  wishes  to  take  home  a  memorial  of  the 
fight  he  digs  a  little  below  the  surface,  and  he  finds 
a  few  grains  of  Indian  corn  which  were  burned  black 
in  the  terrible  fire  of  that  day,  and  as  charcoal  have 
preserved  their  shape  for  two  centuries. 

Whether  this  massacre  and  destruction  were  nec- 
essary, it  is  impossible  to  say.  This  is  certain,  that 
no  one  among  the  whites  doubted  the  necessity  then. 
These  brave  men  who  marched  and  died  in  the  at- 
tack, did  not  doubt  it.  But  on  the  other  side  it  is  to 
be  remembered  that  the  Narragansetts  had  always 
been  the  friends  of  the  English.  As  has  been  said, 
Philip  called  them  his  enemies  five  years  before.  It 
is  hard  to  believe  that  if  they  knew  themselves 
guilty,  they  would  have  hazarded  all,  as  they  did,  by 
bringing  into  one  stronghold  all  their  forces.  Ca- 
nonchet  may  well  have  promised  more  than  he  could 
perform,  and  found  that  he  could  not  execute  the 


THE  FIRST  INDIAN  WARS.  161 

terms  of  the  treaty  which  he  had  made.  The  whites 
made  this  failure  their  reason  for  the  attack  and  the 
massacre. 

The  victory  of  the  whites  broke  the  power  of  this 
.strong  tribe,  and  the  man  who  is  splitting  wood  for 
me,  on  the  outside  of  the  window  where  I  write,  a 
few  miles  only  from  the  fort  where  so  many  of  them 
died,  himself  a  respectable  farmer,  whose  wife 
brought  me  last  week  a  beautiful  nosegay  of  roses, 
is  one  of  the  Last  of  the  Narragansetts. 


CHAPTER  XL 

SIK   EDMUND    ANDROS. 

THE  founders  of  the  Massachusetts  Bay  Colony 
had  withdrawn  from  England  to  set  up  in 
America  such  a  form  of  government  in  Church  and 
State  as  they  had  thought  to  be  agreeable  to  the 
.Word  of  God.  What  that  government  was,  the 
reader  has  already  seen.  It  goes  without  saying 
that  it  was  a  form  of  government  of  which  any 
Stuart  King  of  England  would  have  highly  disap- 
proved. But  at  the  time  of  the  institution  of  the 
Puritan  Commonwealth  and  during  the  first  years 
of  its  growth  in  power,  the  King  of  England  then 
reigning,  Charles  I.,  had  found  his  hands  so  full 
of  affairs  with  his  English  subjects,  that  he  by  no 
means  had  time  to  regulate  in  any  way  the  proceed- 
ings, however  distasteful,  of  those  in  America;  so, 
with  the  setting  up  of  the  Commonwealth,  the  Massa- 
chusetts Puritans  had  seen  the  places  in  power  in 
England  filled  with  those  who  were  on  the  whole  fa- 
vorable to  them,  or  at  least  not  openly  opposed  to 
their  views  and  ideas.  Therefore,  for  the  first  thirty 
years  of  its  existence,  until  the  Restoration  of 
Charles  II.,  the  Puritan  Commonwealth  directed  its- 
own  affairs  in  the  manner  that  seemed  to  it  best,. 

162 


S1J2   EDMUND  ANDROS.  163 

with  no  interference  on  the  part  of  any  outside  au- 
thority. This  happy  immunity  from  trouble  was, 
however,  to  come  to  an  end.  Massachusetts  was  to 
Come  into  collision  with  the  royal  power  in  England. 
We  have  already  seen  the  manner  in  which 
Charles  II.  had  interfered  in  behalf  of  the  Quakers. 
It  could  hardly  be  expected  that  interference  would 
stop  here.  Under  any  circumstances  the  de  facto 
independence  of  the  Massachusetts  Colony  could  not 
but  have  been  distasteful  to  the  King  of  England. 
But  during  the  period  of  its  power  that  de  facto 
power  had  been  used  in  such  a  way  as  had  raised  up 
against  it  a  crowd  of  enemies.  One  of  the  earliest 
settlers  of  New  England  had  been  Samuel  Maverick. 
Exactly  when  he  came  to  this  country  cannot  be 
stated.  He  was  found  on  Noddle's  Island  by  Win- 
throp  and  his  fleet.  He  was  an  Episcopalian,  and  by 
no  means  sympathized  with  the  ideas  and  aims  of 
the  new  colonists.  In  the  disputes  that  rose  between 
them  Maverick  was  decidedly  worsted,  and  with- 
drew to  England,  where  at  the  Restoration  he  was 
naturally  a  person  of  some  authority  as  to  colonial 
affairs.  Other  victims  of  the  Colony's  rigorously 
exclusive  policy  were  also  to  be  found  at  the  Court 
of  Charles  II.  Roger  Williams,  it  is  true,  had  be- 
taken himself  to  Rhode  Island  and  as  for  the  un- 
fortunate Anne  Hutch inson,  she  had  gone  to  a 
higher  court  even  than  that  of  the  merry  monarch. 
But  there  were  at  this  time  in  England  Dr.  John 
Clarke,  who  had  been  banished  from  Massachusetts, 
and  various  Quakers  who  had  been  banished,  as  well 


164  SIR  EDMUND  ANDROS. 

as  friends  of  those  who  had  been  hanged.  And 
Gorges  and  others  who  had  charter  rights  in  Maine 
were  naturally  on  the  lookout  to  find  defenders  of 
those  rights  against  the  Colony  which  had  disregarded 
them. 

The  English  merchants,  too,  were  dissatisfied  be- 
cause the  New  Englanders  paid  no  attention,  to 
speak  of,  to  the  navigation  acts.  And  even  had 
these  witnesses  been  wanting,  there  were  enough 
now  in  England  sufficiently  jealous  of  the  king's  pre- 
rogative to  make  sure  that  it  was  nowhere  infringed 
upon.  The  Puritans  in  Old  England  had  been  put 
to  the  wall,  what  more  natural  than  that  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  Puritans  in  New  England  should  be 
put  to  a  thorough  overhauling. 

When  the  matter  was  carefully  considered  it  ap- 
peared that  the  New  England  Colonies  had  done 
many  things  which  in  the  view  of  the  crown  lawyers 
they  by  no  means  had  any  right  to  do. 

They  had  confined  the  right  of  franchise  to  a  very 
small  number. 

They  had  refused  to  allow  those  who  desired  to 
use  the  English  Book  of  Common  Prayer  to  do  so. 

They  had  neglected  the  Navigation  Laws. 

They  had  made  laws  and  drawn  up  writs  in  their 
own  name,  and  not  in  that  of  the  King  of  England. 

They  had  neglected  the  oath  of  allegiance. 

They  had  made  laws  repugnant  to  those  of 
England. 

They  had  refused  to  allow  appeals  to  England. 

They  had  coined  money. 


EDMUND   AND  R  OS.  165- 


They  had  otherwise  assumed  powers  not  warranted 
by  their  charters,  and  Massachusetts  was  executing 
her  charter  in  another  place  than  was  intended. 

In  other  ways  too  had  they  proceeded  in  a  high- 
handed and  authoritative  manner,  and  it  was  quite 
clear  that,  as  soon  as  matters  in  England  had  been 
put  on  a  stable  basis,  the  New  Englanders  would 
have  to  be  humbled. 

The  first  attempt  was  not  attended  with  all  the 
success  that  had  been  desired.  In  the  year  1662, 
the  colony  thought  fit  to  send  to  England  agents 
who  should  bear  to  His  Majesty  an  address  expressive 
of  colonial  loyalty  and,  it  may  be  added,  colonial  ob- 
stinacy. John  Norton  and  Simon  Bradstreet  were 
chosen  for  this  duty  and  bore  with  them  an  address 
and  letters  to  such  important  persons  at  court  as 
might  aid  their  suit.  Some  time  subsequent  to  their 
departure,  the  General  Court,  as  though  to  make 
quite  clear  their  exact  position,  proceeded  to  pass  an 
order  providing  for  the  issuing  of  new  coin,  —  an 
act  indicative  of  the  most  independent  sovereignty. 
It  was  this  money,  by  the  way,  which  bore  upon  it  a 
tree  usually  imagined  by  New  Englanders  to  be  a 
pine,  but  presented  to  Charles  II.  as  a  representa- 
tion of  the  Royal  Oak  in  which  he  had  hidden  him- 
self after  the  Battle  of  Worcester. 

The  agents  returned  from  England  bearing  with 
them  an  answer  from  the  king  in  which  His  Majesty 
demanded  that,  in  most  of  the  points  noted  above 
the  colonists  should  mend  their  ways.  The  letter 
was  published  according  to  rule,  but  very  little  at- 


166  SIX  EDMUND  AND  EOS. 

tention  was  paid  to  it.  The  General  Court  made 
the  pretense  of  obeying  portions  of  it,  but  on  the 
whole  their  proceedings  could  not  have  been  wholly 
satisfactory  to  royal  authority.  Had  not  Charles 
and  his  ministers  been  very  busy  at  home  something 
would  have  been  done  at  once.  As  it  was,  it  was 
two  years  before  four  commissioners  were  appointed 
to  represent  the  king  in  New  England.  They  were 
to  see  that  the  king's  letter  of  two  years  previous 
had  been  complied  with,  and  to  hear  appeals  from 
the  colonial  courts. 

Not  to  be  tedious,  these  commissioners  may  be 
said  to  have  wholly  failed  in  their  business.  They 
first  visited  the  New  Netherlands  which  had  just 
come  into  the  possession  of  the  English.  Next  they 
passed  through  Connecticut  (to  which  New  Haven 
was  now  joined),  Rhode  Island  and  Plymouth,  where 
they  were  received  on  the  whole  with  deference. 
From  thence  they  came  to  Boston  and  here  they  found 
it  wholly  impossible  to  carry  out  their  orders.  The 
General  Court  and  the  magistrates  argued  with 
them,  and  with  many  protestations  of  loyalty  quite 
prevented  them  from  hearing  any  appeals  or  doing 
much  of  anything  else  that  they  had  come  to  do. 
The  commissioners  sailed  for  England  in  a  discomfited 
frame  of  mind.  The  Colony  of  Massachusetts  Bay 
had  scored  a  victory. 

For  ten  years  no  step  was  taken  by  the  royal 
authority  to  enforce  the  power  which  had  thus  practi- 
cally been  set  aside.  Events  in  England  during  these 
ten  years  were  such  as  fully  to  occupy  the  minds  of 


Silt  EDMUND   ANDROS.  167 

those  who  governed.  It  was  in  1676  that  the  matter 
was  again  opened.  In  that  year  Edmund  Randolph 
was  sent  as  messenger  to  Massachusetts,  and  began 
a  strife  which,  lasting  for  ten  years,  ended  in  the 
complete  downfall  of  the  Puritan  Colony,  the  with- 
drawal of  the  Colonial  Charter,  and  the  administra- 
tion of  Sir  Edmund  Andros. 

It  would  be  too  long  for  our  purpose  to  detail  all 
the  steps  in  this  long-drawn  and  hard-fought  battle. 
The  result  could  hardly  at  any  time  have  been 
doubtful.  The  colonists  were  not  in  the  position  to 
defy  openly  the  commands  of  the  King  of  England. 
King  Charles  II.  was  not  a  man  to  allow  his  desires 
to  be  disregarded  with  impunity.  Step  by  step  the 
colonists  gave  ground,  until  finally  an  action  quo 
warranto  was  brought  against  the  Governor  and 
Company  of  the  Massachusetts  Bay.  The  object  of 
such  an  action  was  to  inquire  by  what  warrant  the 
company  had  done  such  and  such  things  alleged 
against  them,  and  to  demand  the  showing  cause  by 
the  company  why  their  charter  should  not  be  for- 
feited. As  a  matter  of  fact  the  company  had  done 
much  that  was  illegal.  But  even  if  it  had  not,  the 
purpose  of  the  Royal  Government  to  take  away  the 
charter  could  not  well  have  been  withstood.  The 
company  did  not  endeavor  any  legal  defense  and  a 
judgment  was  entered  vacating  the  charter  on  the 
twenty-third  day  of  October,  1684. 

Such  was  the  end  of  the  Puritan  Commonwealth. 
For  fifty-four  years  it  had  existed  in  New  England 
as  a  practically  independent  political  body.  It  had 


168  SIR  EDMUND  AND2WS. 

been  ruled  over  by  men  whose  chief  idea  was  to 
carry  out  the  will  of  God  on  earth.  In  pursuing 
this  notion  much  evil  had  been  worked,  but  the  good 
which  had  been  accomplished  was  far  greater.  They 
had  offered  to  the  world  such  a  spectacle  of  self- 
government  as  it  had  been  for  a  long  time  unaccus- 
tomed to,  they  had  brought  up  a  generation  of 
Americans  in  the  habits  and  enjoyment  of  practical 
political  liberty,  they  had  been  the  forerunners  of 
the  Revolutionary  heroes.  They  had  not  done  all 
that  they  might  have  done.  It  was  reserved  for 
Rhode  Island,  Maryland  and  Pennsylvania  to  show 
the  possibilities  of  religious  liberty,  but  Massachusetts 
had  at  least  given  birth  to  that  feeling  for  political 
freedom  which  has  never  died  out  in  our  country. 

The  Governor  and  Company  of  the  Massachusetts 
Bay  now  no  longer  existed.  There  was  therefore 
now  no  legal  form  of  government,  under  the  king, 
in  the  territory  which  they  had  previously  controlled. 
The  old  government  was,  however,  continued  pro- 
visionally. Charles  II.  died  and  James  II.  was  pro- 
claimed. Still  for  some  time  nothing  was  done. 
New  officers  were  elected  as  usual  under  the  charter 
but  they  were  regarded  as  only  provisional.  It  was 
not  until  1686  that  a  temporary  government  was 
erected.  Joseph  Dudley,  the  son  of  Thomas  Dudley, 
who  had  shown  himself  rather  a  friend  to  the  Royalist 
party  than  to  those  who  represented  the  principles 
of  his  father,  was  made  President  over  Massachu- 
setts, New  Hampshire,  Maine  and  the  King's  Province 
(now  part  of  Rhode  Island).  But  this  arrangement 


SIR  EJ>MUND   ANDROS.  169 

also  was  only  temporary.  Toward  the  end  of  the 
year  the  Province  of  New  England  was  constituted., 
which  comprised  in  time  all  the  territory  now  known 
under  that  name,  with  New  York  and  New  Jersey  to 
boot,  and  Sir  Edmund  Andros  was  made  governor 
thereof.  The  new  governor  arrived  in  Boston  on  the 
twentieth  of  December,  1686. 

If  the  inhabitants  had  enjoyed  the  privileges  of 
almost  absolute  self-government  during  the  fifty-four 
years'  maintenance  of  the  charter,  they  now  experi- 
enced the  exactions  of  arbitrary  tyranny  for  the  two 
years  and  four  months  of  the  reign  of  Andros.  The 
reign  of  James  II.  in  England,  although  short,  was 
long  enough  to  acquaint  her  people  with  some  of 
the  most  grinding  forms  of  tyranny.  Andros  was 
no  unfit  representative  of  his  royal  master.  Under- 
standing thoroughly  James's  desires  and  purposes  in 
England,  Andros  endeavored  to  carry  out  as  far  as 
possible  in  New  England  desires  and  purposes  of  the 
same  nature.  The  period  during  which  Andros  held 
the  office  of  governor-general  of  New  England  was 
marked  by  obstruction  of  justice,  arbitrary  taxation, 
oppressive  exactions,  less  in  extent  than  those  which 
characterized  the  reign  of  James  II.  only  because 
the  country  over  which  Andros  ruled  was  less  popu- 
lous, less  wealthy  and  less  extensive  than  that  of  the 
English  tyrant. 

The  points  in  which  Andros  became  especially  op- 
pressive were  not  many  in  number,  but  they  were 
of  a  nature  that  touched  almost  every  inhabitant  of 
the  country.  In  the  first  place,  as  to  land  titles,  the 


170  SIR  ^EDMUND  ANDEOS. 

ingenious  mind  of  some  one  connected  with  the  royal 
government  devised  a  way  of  at  once  outraging  and 
oppressing  the  colonists  and  enriching  the  governor 
and  his  friends.  All  the  land  in  the  Colony  was  held 
on  tenure  that  at  one  time  or  another  came  from  the 
Massachusetts  Bay  Company.  The  King  of  Eng- 
land was  held  to  be  by  right  of  discovery  the  owner 
of  all  land  in  New  England.  He  had  made  over  his 
right  to  the  Massachusetts  Bay  Company,  who  in 
turn  had  turned  it  over  to  towns  or  private  individ- 
uals, who  had  in  turn  passed  it  on.  It  was  now  ex- 
plained that  the  company  having  lost  its  charter,  its 
grants  were  of  no  avail,  and  that  all  the  land  re- 
verted to  the  king.  In  pursuance  of  this  idea,  it 
was  given  out  that  whoever  desired  to  retain  pos- 
session of  his  land  might  do  so  upon  the  paying  of 
a  quitrent  to  the  king.  If  the  present  land  owners 
did  not  acquiesce  and  take  out  new  leases,  the  land 
was,  in  not  a  few  cases,  taken  from  them,  and  often 
handed  over  to  some  one  near  the  governor.  In  like 
manner  were  the  common  lands  of  the  various  towns 
dealt  with,  being  generally  near  the  center  of  the 
towns  and  so  of  some  value.  In  these  transactions 
Andros  and  Randolph  showed  very  clearly  that  their 
notion  was  not  so  much  to  govern  the  Colony  as  to 
revenge  the  king  upon  it  for  having  so  long  governed 
itself. 

Another  matter  which  touched  the  colonists  nearly, 
was  in  the  direction  of  taxation.  The  General  Court, 
which  had  been  made  up  of  representatives  of  the 
towns,  had  been  done  away  with,  and  the  only  form 


Silt  EDMUND  AND  EOS.  171 

of  legislative  body  in  the  Colony  was  the  Governor's 
Council,  which  had  been  named  by  the  king.  This 
body  was  little  more  than  a  means  of  registering  the 
governor's  decrees.  The  governor  and  council  now 
imposed  certain  taxes,  and  ordered  the  commissioners 
and  selectmen  of  the  various  towns  to  assess  them 
properly  on  the  inhabitants.  There  has  never  been 
any  grievance  which  so  bitterly  aroused  Englishmen 
as  that  of  arbitrary  taxation.  This  example  was  no 
exception  to  the  rule.  Many  towns  refused  to  obey 
the  warrant  from  the  council.  The  form  which  the 
opposition  took  was  a  refusal  to  elect  a  commis- 
sioner who  should  assist  the  selectmen  in  making 
the  assessment. 

The  governor,  however,  was  in  no  mood  for  tri- 
fling. The  recalcitrant  citizens  were  at  once  arrested 
and  brought  to  Boston,  where  they  were  put  to  speedy 
trial  and,  having  been  found  guilty  of  contempt  and 
high  misdemeanor,  were  heavily  fined.  The  offend- 
ers in  one  or  two  cases  served  as  examples  and 
speedily  brought  the  rest  to  terms.  There  was,  in- 
deed, nothing  else  to  do.  The  governor  was  backed 
by  the  power  of  England,  and  Massachusetts  was  in 
no  condition  to  think  of  open  resistance. 

The  governor  and  council,  in  the  second  year  of 
their  tenure,  passed  an  act  which  in  another  direc- 
tion was  as  subversive  of  the  liberties  of  .the  colonists 
as  had  been  either  of  the  oppressions  before  noted. 
Its  purport  was  to  forbid  the  various  towns  to  hold 
more  than  one  town  meeting  a  year.  At  that  town 
meeting  selectmen  were  to  be  chosen  who  were  to 


172  SIR  EDMUND  ANDROS. 

manage  the  property  of  the  town  and  carry  on  its 
business.  There  was  to  be  no  town  meeting  in  the 
old  sense,  however,  any  more  than  there  was  any 
representation  of  the  towns  in  General  Court. 

Another  proceeding  of  the  governor's,  far  less  ob- 
jectionable in  itself,  but  almost  as  exasperating  to 
the  colonists,  was  the  establishment  of  the  Episcopal 
form  of  worship  in  the  Colony.  Andros  made  re- 
quisitions on  the  ministers  of  the  town  to  allow  the 
meeting-houses  to  be  used  for  service  according  to 
the  Anglican  form  at  some  time  when  it  would  not 
interfere  with  the  regular  worship.  The  ministers, 
after  considering  the  matter,  agreed  that  they  could 
not  conscientiously  allow  their  meeting-houses  to  be 
used  for  such  a  purpose  at  any  time.  The  governor 
insisted.  He  demanded  the  keys  of  the  Old  South 
Meeting-house  for  service  on  Good  Friday.  The 
congregation  protested,  saying  that  the  house  was 
theirs  and  that  they  could  not  allow  it  to  be  used 
for  any  such  purpose,  but  Andros  proceeded  without 
their  consent,  and  the  church  was  after  that  time 
used  for  Episcopal  services  as  well  as  those  for  which 
the  house  had  been  built. 

It  maybe  imagined  that  the  people  did  not  remain 
quiet  under  these  and  other  like  oppressions,  without 
trying  to  gain  some  redress.  In  the  early  part  of 
the  year  1688,  the  once  famous  Increase  Mather  had 
been  dispatched  to  England  to  present  the  griev- 
ances of  the  Province  to  the  attention  of  the  king. 
Mather  was  a  man  of  note  in  the  Province  and  ap- 
pears to  have  been  treated  with  some  distinction  in 


EDMUND   ANDROS.  173 


England,  but  at  this  time  he  was  able  to  do  nothing 
whatever  in  the  way  of  mitigating  the  severities 
under  which  the  Province  was  laboring.  The  king 
promised  favor,  but  it  became  quite  clear  to  Mather 
that  he  should  be  able  to  accomplish  nothing. 

It  was  not  by  soft  words  that  the  New  Englanders 
were  to  accomplish  their  end.  Like  their  country- 
men at  home,  they  were  to  obtain  their  liberty 
through  force.  As  James  II.  fell  in  England  after  a 
revolution,  so  did  his  servant  Andros  fall  in  Boston, 
-after  a  revolt  in  the  town  that  would  have  turned 
out  seriously  had  it  met  with  any  opposition  worthy 
of  the  name. 

Toward  the  end  of  the  year  Andros  became  in- 
volved in  difficulties  with  the  Indians  in  Maine 
and  New  Hampshire.  He  made  a  military  expedi- 
tion against  them  to  the  eastward,  which  turned  out 
unsuccessfully  and  thus  gave  occasion  for  numerous 
suspicions.  It  was  said  that  Andros  was  in  league 
with  the  French  ;  that  it  was  proposed  to  hand  New 
England  over  to  them  ;  that  his  expeditions  had  no 
other  object  than  to  denude  the  Province  of  its  fight- 
ing men.  At  this  time  came  rumors  of  the  anticipa- 
tions in  England  of  the  movement  of  the  Prince  of 
Orange. 

In  February  there  arrived  in  Boston  a  young  man 
who  brought  news  of  the  landing  of  the  Prince  of 
Orange  in  England.  This  was  enough  to  set  fire  to 
the  smouldering  embers.  It  is  true  that  there  was 
no  assurance  of  victory  ahead.  William  of  Orange 
was  by  no  means  certain  of  success.  If  the  New 


174  SIR  EDMUND  AND1WS. 

Englanders  should  rise  and  James  should  succeed  in 
retaining  his  throne,  their  last  condition  would  be 
worse  than  their  first.  Nevertheless  the  attempt 
was  made,  and  made  in  the  quiet  and  concerted  man- 
ner which  became  not  unusual  among  the  inhabitants 
of  Boston  at  a  later  period. 

On  the  eighteenth  of  April  there  was  a  rising  in 
Boston.  The  captain  of  the  English  frigate  in  the 
harbor  was  arrested.  Andros  took  refuge  in  the  fort 
on  the  hill  of  that  name  (Fort  hill).  The  members 
of  the  old  government  gathered  together  to  discuss 
matters.  The  people  thronged  the  streets.  A  num- 
ber of  the  governor's  party  were  put  in  jail. 

The  leaders  of  the  proceeding  drew  up  a  Declara- 
tion in  which  was  set  forth  the  unlawful  behavior 
of  Andros.  The  Prince  of  Orange  was  mentioned, 
and  the  document  stated  that  the  offenders  were  now 
to  be  secured  to  wait  the  orders  of  "  His  Highness- 
and  the  English  Parliament."  This  statement  of 
purpose  was  read  from  the  town  house  to  the  as- 
sembled people,  much  to  their  satisfaction.  It  only 
remained  to  carry  the  purpose  into  effect  —  which 
was,  in  truth,  no  very  difficult  matter,  for  the  coun- 
try was  by  this  time  aroused  and  soldiers  were  be- 
ginning to  come  into  Boston  from  the  neighboring 
towns.  Andros  was  in  the  fort.  The  frigate 
Rose  in  the  harbor,  and  also  the  Castle,  held  for 
him.  But  Andros  was  shortly  seized,  the  force 
against  him  being  overpowering,  and  at  his  order 
the  Castle  was  surrendered.  As  to  the  frigate,  a 
compromise  was  effected  and  she  was  not  surren- 


SIR  EDMUND  ANDROS.  175 

dered,  but  dismantled  and  otherwise  made  useless. 
One  by  one  all  of  Andres's  principal  adherents  were 
seized  and  committed  to  jail. 

Such  was  the  end  of  the  government  of  Sir 
Edmund  Andros.  He  had  rendered  himself  intoler- 
able to  those  he  had  oppressed  under  pretense  of 
governing  in  the  same  manner  as  had  James  II. 
And  in  return,  as  the  English  nation  had  showed 
that  they  could  not  stomach  the  oppressions  of  James 
II.  so  did  the  New  Englanders  make  it  clear  that 
they  could  not  get  along  with  his  servant. 

For  the  time  being  the  members  of  the  govern- 
ment which  had  existed  before  the  Presidency  of 
Dudley  took  up  again  the  offices  which  they  had  laid 
down,  but  only  for  a  time.  They  waited  for  some 
settlement  to  be  made  by  William  III. 


CHAPTER   XII. 

AN  INDEPENDENT  STATE. THE    SALEM  WITCHCRAFT. 

THE  very  moment  when  Phipps  assumed  the 
government  under  the  new  charter  marks  the 
period  which  has  the  sad  pre-eminence  in  Massachu- 
setts history  that  it  saw  the  beginning,  middle  and 
end  of  the  terrible  delusion  which  we  call  the  Salem 
Witchcraft.  The  scene  of  the  bewitchments  and 
their  consequences  was  the  town  now  known  by  the 
name  of  Danvers.  It  is  a  short  distance  from  Salem, 
and  at  that  time  was  known  as  Salem  Village. 

Mr.  Samuel  Parris  was  the  minister  of  the  church. 
His  daughter  Elizabeth,  a  girl  of  nine,  with  other 
girls  and  young  women  of  ages  between  ten  and 
twenty,  became  wildly  curious  about  sorcery  and 
witchcraft.  The  superstitious  fancies  of  the  second 
generation  of  Puritans  were  full  of  such  stories,  and 
it  may  be  said  in  passing  that  such  stories  lingered 
in  Essex  County  as  traditions  within  the  memory  of 
people  now  living.  These  children  became  so  nearly 
insane  in  their  excitement,  that  physicians,  who  did 
not  understand  it,  declared  that  they  were  bewitched. 
The  children  themselves,  pressed  to  say  who  be- 
witched them,  gave  the  names  of  Tituba,  a  slave 
half  Indian  and  half  negro,  who  belonged  to  Mr. 

176 


THE  SALEM   WITCHCRAFT.  177 

Parris,  and  whom  he  had  brought  from  Barbadoes, 
of  Sarah  Goode  and  Sarah  Osborn.  The  children 
afterward  named  Martha  Corey  and  Rebecca  Nourse, 
church  members  of  excellent  stand  ing  and  character. 

The  excitement  in  the  neighborhood  increased,  and 
all  five  were  committed  for  trial.  The  whole  neigh- 
borhood was  in  a  ferment ;  Mr.  Parris  preached  on 
the  subject,  and  by  the  fourteenth  of  May,  when 
Phipps  arrived  from  England,  there  were  a  hundred 
alleged  witches  in  jail,  waiting  trial.  Phipps  at  once 
issued  a  special  commission  of  seven  magistrates  to 
investigate  the  cases.  He  had  no  right  to  do  so 
under  the  new  charter  which  he  was  administering, 
but  no  one  seems  at  the  moment  to  have  made  offi- 
cial protest  against  the  procedure. 

In  June  they  tried  Bridget  Bishop.  At  the  end  of 
four  weeks  they  sat  again,  and  at  this  time  sentenced 
five  women  to  die,  and  all  of  them  were  executed 
within  three  weeks  after  protesting  their  innocence. 
When  Rebecca  Nourse,  a  matron  eminent  for  piety 
and  goodness,  was  tried,  the  jury  acquitted  her  ;  but 
Stonghton,  who  presided  in  the  commission,  sent  the 
jury  out  again  with  his  own  interpretation  of  the 
words  she  had  used  on  her  examination,  and  she  was 
also  sentenced  and  executed. 

The  people  charged  with  witchcraft  were  not  sim- 
ply uneducated  people  of  low  degree,  but  a  warrant 
was  sent  to  Maine  for  the  arrest  of  George  Bur- 
roughs, a  graduate  of  the  college,  who  was  the  min- 
ister of  Wells.  He  had  been  a  rival  candidate  at 
Sale:u  Village  in  a  controversy  when  Parris  had  been 


178  THE  SALEM  WITCHCRAFT. 

elected  minister  of  the  church.  He  was  sentenced,, 
and  on  the  nineteenth  of  August  was  executed.  In 
the  course  of  the  next  month,  six  women  were  tried, 
convicted  and  sentenced  in  one  day,  and  on  another 
day  eight  women  and  one  man,  of  whom  eight  were 
hanged.  Giles  Corey  has  won  the  name  of  a  martyr 
by  refusing  to  plead.  He  was  eighty  years  of  age? 
and  he  was  pressed  to  death  with  heavy  weights  laid 
on  his  body  —  the  old  penalty  of  the  English  com- 
mon law  for  a  refusal  to  answer;  it  is  called  the- 
peine  forte  et  dure. 

In  the  month  of  October  the  delusion  had  extended 
into  other  neighborhoods.  In  all  twenty  men,  wo- 
men and  children  had  been  executed,  and  persons  of 
more  and  more  distinction  were  included  among  those 
charged.  Hezekiah  Usher,  one  of  the  older  mag- 
istrates, and  Mrs.  Thacher,  who  was  the  mother-in-law 
of  Corwin,  one  of  the  justices,  were  among  them. 
At  last  Mrs.  Hale,  wife  of  the  minister  of  Beverly, 
was  charged,  and  even  Lady  Phipps  and  Mr.  Willard, 
the  minister  of  the  Old  South  Church,  were  spoken 
of  invidiously. 

With  the  intimation  that  Mrs.  Hale  was  a  witch, 
the  tide  turned.  Her  husband,  who  afterwards  con- 
fessed with  shame  that  he  had  joined  in  the  delusion, 
now  stood  on  her  side,  and  popular  feeling  at  once 
went  round,  like  a  gale  in  the  tropics,  and  blew  from 
the  other  quarter.  The  visitation  had  been  confined 
to  some  towns  in  Essex  County,  and  as  soon  as  the 
public  opinion  of  the  province  at  large  came^to  bear* 
it  stopped.  The  General  Court  met  on  the  twelfth 


THE  SALEM   WITCHCRAFT.  179 

of  October.  It  superseded  the  court  of  special  com- 
mission by  constituting  a  regular  tribunal  of  supreme 
jurisdiction.  When  that  court  met,  more  than  half 
the  presentments  were  thrown  out  by  the  grand 
jury,  and  although  bills  were  found  against  twenty- 
six  persons,  only  three  were  found  guilty,  and  all  of 
these  were  pardoned.  From  this  moment,  all  parties, 
excepting  Stoughton  and  Cotton  Mather,  were  eager 
to  disclaim  all  connection  with  the  tragedy,  or  to 
ask  pardon  of  God  and  of  their  fellow-citizens  for 
their  share  in  it.  The  story  of  Judge  Sewall's  peni- 
tence has  been  made  well  known  by  Mr.  Whittier's 
poem. 

For  such  madnesses  in  any  community  and  in  any 
time,  it  is  impossible  to  account  fully,  except  by  sav- 
ing that  they  are  madnesses,  that  the  ordinary  laws 
that  govern  human  intelligence  do  not  apply  to  them. 
But  now  that  we  see  and  hear  so  much  of  what  are 
called  spiritual  manifestations,  now  that  every  intelli- 
gent person  has  to  admit  that  there  are  forces  for 
which  no  naturalist  is  able  to  account,  easily  called 
into  being  by  a  strong  will  or  by  an  ingenious  manip- 
ulator, it  seems  impossible  to  deny  that  something 
of  what  we  now  call  hypnotism  or  mesmerism  or 
spiritualism  was  involved  in  the  Salem  witchcraft. 
Add  to  this  element  the  presence  of  Tituba,  with 
those  wild  superstitions  of  the  negro  which  take  the 
name  of  Voudoo,  and  put  the  scene  of  the  tragedy 
in  a  little  Puritan  village,  at  the  end  of  winter,  when 
the  people  have  been  shut  up  to  themselves  and  to 
their  petty  and  miserable  quarrels,  and  it  is  not 


180  THE  SALEM   WITCHCRAFT. 

difficult  to  make  out  causes  enough,  even  for  conse- 
quences so  terrible.  It  may  be  added  that,  if  these 
children  had  told  their  lies  at  any  other  moment  in 
the  history  of  Massachusetts,  from  1620  to  1891. 
those  lies  would  have  been  forgotten  like  the  other 
lies  of  childhood.  As  it  happened,  they  came  at  a 
moment  when  it  would  almost  be  fair  to  say  that 
the  province  was  under  no  government.  They  came 
when  Phipps,  an  ignorant  man,  had  come  out  with  a 
new  charter,  which  had  not  been  put  in  force.  Yield- 
ing to  some  of  the  superstitions  of  some  of  the  best 
men  around  him,  Phipps  established  the  extraordinary 
court,  to  which  the  State  owes  the  worst  disgrace  in 
her  annals.  So  soon  as  the  province  could  act  of  itself, 
under  its  own  charter,  the  infamous  proceedings  of 
that  tribunal  came  to  an  end.  In  the  next  genera- 
tion, the  province  made  such  scanty  return  as  it  could 
to  the  children  of  those  who  had  been  tried,  by 
restoring  them  to  all  civil  rights  which,  under  the 
law  of  the  time,  they  had  lost. 

As  early  as  1640,  the  colonists  of  Massachusetts 
and  of  Connecticut  had  begun  to  import  cotton  from 
Barbadoes.  This  was  used  at  first,  it  seems,  for  corse- 
lets, to  turn  the  flint  point  of  an  Indian's  arrow.  But, 
almost  as  soon  as  the  manufacture  of  cotton  began 
in  the  English  Manchester,  the  New  England  house- 
wives found  out  that  the  fingers  and  wheels  which 
would  spin  flax,  would  spin  cotton,  and  from  that 
time  cotton  spinning  was  a  Massachusetts  industry. 
The  cotton  thus  spun  was  not  regular  enough  to  be 
used  in  a  shuttle  for  the  warp  of  a  web  of  cloth.  But 


THE  SALEM   WITCHCRAFT.  181 

the  woof,  or  lay  strips  of  the  web,  was  made  from 
it,  and  a  sheet  half  cotton  and  half  linen  was  thus 
woven.  Or  it  might  be  that  the  warp  was  of  wool, 
and  a  sort  of  cotton  flannel  was  the  product. 

When  Charles  II.  returned  to  the  throne,  such  in- 
dustries were  too  well  established  to  be  dispossessed. 

Indeed,  at  that  time,  Massachusetts  had  existed 
for  thirty  years  as  a  sovereignty  well-nigh  indepen- 
dent. From  1652  to  1682  she  stamped  her  own 
money,  usurping  for  convenience  of  trade,  the  pre- 
rogative which  has  been  regarded  as  a  special  visible 
sign  of  royalty.  The  Pine-Tree  Shilling,  bearing 
the  pine-tree,  which  was  on  the  seal  of  the  Colony, 
was  struck  in  Boston  for  a  generation,  with  six 
pences  and  three  pences  of  a  similar  pattern.  In 
the  hope  of  keeping  this  coin  at  home,  it  was  made 
of  such  size  that  a  New  England  shilling  was  worth 
three  fourths  of  an  English  shilling ;  and  to  this 
hour,  an  old  New  Englander  speaks  as  if  six  shillings 
were  of  the  same  worth  as  a  Spanish  dollar. 

The  conditions  of  trade  and  manufacture  thus  de- 
scribed were  well  established  by  the  end  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  The  fishermen  of  the  Bay 
brought  in  cod-fish  and  dried  and  salted  them  —  or 
perhaps  cured  them  on  the  shores  of  the  Gulf  of  St. 
Lawrence  or  other  Eastern  waters,  in  which  or  near 
which  they  had  been  taken.  The  fish  thus  cured 
were  sent  to  the  West  Indies,  to  the  Teneriffe 
Islands  or  the  Azores,  to  Portugal,  Spain  or  the 
Mediterranean  countries,  and  were  there  sold  or  ex- 
changed for  the  products  of  those  countries.  In 


182  THE  SALEM    WITCHCRAFT. 

Catholic  countries,  especially,  the  demands  of  the 
fast  days  of  the  church  gave  a  stimulus  to  the  pros- 
perity of  the  heretics  of  New  England.  In  our  own 
time,  an  experienced  traveler  has  told  me  that  he 
had  never  found  the  "  dun-fish  "  of  New  England  so 
delicious  as  in  a  convent  at  Vaucluse  —  a  name 
which  we  are  not  apt  to  connect  with  such  carnal 
pleasures. 

With  the  product  of  his  "voyage  out"  the  captain 
returned  to  America  or  to  England,  as  seemed  best. 
He  did  not  distress  himself  much  as  to  the  requisi- 
tion of  the  Navigation  Acts.  If  when  he  came  to 
England,  he  found  that  any  shipping  merchant 
turned  a  fond  eye  upon  the  beautiful  vessel  which 
had  been  built  in  "  the  Bay  "  he  sold  the  vessel,  and, 
with  his  crew,  returned  home,  investing  the  pro- 
ceeds of  the  sale  of  vessel  and  cargo  in  such  goods 
as  would  sell  well  in  New  England.  If  no  one 
offered  for  the  vessel  a  price  which  pleased  him,  he 
freighted  her  with  a  cargo  of  such  goods  and  brought 
her  home.  Such  a  three-sided  voyage  was  the  gen- 
eral course  of  foreign  trade.  And  this  course  —  with 
increasing  volume  of  exports  and  imports  —  con- 
tinued until  the  Revolution. 

It  was  by  such  industries,  whether  in  the  field, 
with  the  spinning-wheel  or  the  loom,  in  fishing-boats 
or  on  the  ocean,  that  the  people  were  using  the 
means  which  nature  had  lavishly  laid  at  their  feet, 
and  were  increasing  in  wealth  as  they  increased  in 
numbers.  With  the  increase  in  numbers  they  took 
up  new  lands  and  established  new  towns.  All  around 


THE  SALEM    WITCHCRAFT.  183 

them,  as  will  be  seen  in  another  chapter,  were 
savages  who  deserved  that  name,  who  were  instigated 
constantly  to  attack  by  the  Jesuit  missionaries  who 
virtually  led  the  politics  of  Canada.  There  was, 
therefore,  almost  nothing  of  that  separate  settlement 
by  individuals  in  lonely  cabins,  each  with  his  own 
family,  which  has  characterized  the  more  recent  emi- 
gration to  the  Western  States.  The  habit  of  Mas- 
sachusetts was  rather  to  establish  a  town,  which  from 
the  beginning  carried  with  itself  the  essential  ele- 
ments of  organized  society.  Some  leader  or  leaders 
found  a  place  fit  for  a  new  settlement ;  these  men 
applied  to  the  General  Court  for  the  right  to  take  up 
those  lands,  for  which  they  paid  nothing,  and  to  es- 
tablish there  a  "  town."  This  did  not  mean  what  the 
word  "  town  "  means  in  the  language  of  England.  It 
meant  a  community  or  corporation  with  very  consid- 
erable rights  for  its  own  independent  government. 
Those  who  had  the  right  given  them  to  establish  such 
a  community  proceeded  to  collect  men  and  women 
who  would  unite  with  them.  To  those  who  joined 
them  they  gave  a  village  lot  and  a  farm,  generally 
with  a  right  in  the  "commons,"  which  were  held  by 
the  public.  They  established  a  "  meeting-house,"  in 
which  religious  services  should  be  held,  and  in  which 
the  town-meetings  might  assemble.  And  if  they 
were  prosperous  they  appointed  at  the  very  beginning 
a  minister  of  the  gospel  who  should  accompany  them. 
To  this  minister  they  gave  a  lot  for  his  home  and 
a  farm.  In  many  cases  he  became  the  practical 
leader  of  the  town,  as  John  Williams  was  for  many 


184  THE  SALEM   WITCHCRAFT. 

years  the  director,  even  in  war,  of  the  town  of  Deer- 
field.  They  thus  secured,  from  the  very  beginning, 
the  order  which  belongs  to  civil  society.  From  the 
beginning,  each  town  was  able  to  maintain  a  school  or 
schools  for  its  children.  Each  house  maintained  a 
block-house  in  the  edge  of  the  frontier,  in  which  the 
inhabitants  might  assemble  in  case  of  danger. 

Under  such  a  system  the  colon}',  or  the  province, 
as  it  began  to  be  called,  increased  steadily  in  wealth. 
The  system  quickened  at  once  the  individual  enter- 
prise of  every  person,  while  it  gave  to  every  person 
the  strength  which  belongs  to  social  order,  and  to 
social  order  only.  At  the  end  of  the  century,  Boston 
was  spoken  of  as  a  town  as  well  built  as  any  in  the 
king's  dominions  outside  of  London.  And  not  only 
in  Boston,  but  in  many  of  the  larger  towns,  were 
homes  which  had  all  the  comforts  and  luxuries 
which  would  have  been  found  in  England.  In  all 
these  large  towns  there  still  remain  houses  which 
were  the  homes  of  some  of  the  magnates  of  those 
days.  The  fashion  of  our  own  day  seeks  to  imitate 
what  is  called  the  "  colonial  architecture  "  of  those 
times,  and  he  is  a  skillful  architect  who  builds  a 
house  as  comfortable  as  the  best  of  those  old  man- 
sions. A  good  example,  which  may  be  readily  ex- 
amined by  many  of  our  readers,  is  in  what  is  known 
as  Wadsworth  House  in  the  college  grounds  at  Cam- 
bridge, which  was  built  under  the  orders  of  the 
General  Court,  for  Wadsworth,  the  president  of  the 
college  at  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

Lord  Bellomont,  who  was  the  governor  in  the  last 


THE  SALEM   WITCHCRAFT.  18.} 

year  of  the  seventeenth  century,  wrote  home  the 
statement  which  has  been  already  cited  —  that  the 
colony  of  Massachusetts  Bay  had  more  vessels  en- 
gaged in  commerce  than  had  Ireland  and  Scotland 
together.  The  frontier  villages,  as  the  reader  will 
see,  were  in  constant  danger  of  attack  from  savages  ; 
but  the  country  was  sufficient  for  its  own  support ; 
it  imported  luxuries  for  the  table  and  the  clothing  of 
those  who  were  most  prosperous.  But  had  an  ocean 
of  fire  separated  Massachusetts  from  the  rest  of  the 
world,  she  was  in  the  year  1700  wholly  able  to 
take  care  of  herself,  and  needed  nothing  which  she 
could  not  provide  from  her  own  resources. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

THE    FRENCH    AND    INDIAN    WARS. 

THE  career  of  prosperity  and  progress  thus  de- 
scribed is  without  parallel  in  the  history  of  the 
world.  It  belongs,  as  has  been  said,  to  the  system 
which  gives  to  each  individual  the  right  to  press  his 
own  fortunes  as  he  can,  without  restriction  from  the 
State  while  he  does  not  interfere  with  any  other. 
The  same  system  gives  open  promotion  to  each  child 
of  God.  Thus  every  faculty  is  at  its  best,  and  every 
incentive  is  given  to  each  man  and  woman  to  ad- 
vance his  own  fortunes  and  the  prosperity  of  the 
State.  No  speculation  on  the  prosperity  of  America 
is  well  founded  unless  the  freedom  of  the  individual, 
or  what  has  been  called  "  open  promotion,"  is  re- 
garded as  the  one  foundation  of  the  whole. 

For  Massachusetts,  this  career  of  prosperity  was 
Ihindered  or  interrupted,  as  is  known,  by  a  series  of 
jpetty  wars,  amounting  almost  to  a  continual  border 
^war  on  her  own  frontier.  She  did  not  owe  this  per- 
petual wasting  of  her  resources  to  any  impolicy  of 
her  own ;  it  was  due  to  the  jealousies  and  rivalries 
of  foreign  courts  and  to  the  determination  of  the 
Jesuit  body,  who  had  virtually  the  control  of  the  for- 
tunes of  Canada,  to  uproot  and  destroy  the  heretic 

186 


FRENCH  AND   INDIAN   WARS.  187 

establishments  of  New  England.  When  these  two 
causes  acted  together,  as  they  did  whenever  England 
and  France  were  at  war.  the  settlers  of  the  frontiers 
of  Massachusetts  on  the  north  and  west  had  to  be  on 
constant  guard  against  the  attacks  of  savages.  For 
nearly  half  a  century  this  border  war  continued.  In 
that  time  the  growth  of  the  population  of  Massachu- 
setts was  checked  ;  instead  of  doubling  in  twenty-five 
years,  it  scarcely  doubled  in  fifty,  so  large  was  the 
draft  made  upon  her  young  men  for  war,  and  so 
terrible  the  devastation  made  by  Indian  massacres. 
It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  the  people  of  Massa- 
chusetts for  those  fifty  years  preserved  that  hatred 
of  the  Catholic  Church  which  had  sent  their  lathers 
into  the  wilderness. 

For  a  century,  the  series  of  military  operations 
into  which  Massachusetts  was  thus  compelled  were 
known  in  the  familiar  conversation  of  her  people  as 
11  the  French  and  Indian  wars."  With  France  as 
France,  Massachusetts  of  course  had  no  quarrel ;  with 
Canada  as  Canada  she  had  nothing  to  do,  and  would 
gladly  have  let  Canada  alone.  With  the  Indians  as 
Indians  she  had  measured  her  forces,  first  in  the 
Pequot  War  and  afterward  in  the  war  with  Philip, 
and  she  had  crushed  them.  The  Indians  whom  she 
found  on  her  own  frontier  were  well  disposed  to  live 
at  peace  with  her  people.  But  it  was  the  policy  of 
the  French  governors  of  Canada  —  led  on  more  by 
religious  hatred,  it  would  seem,  than  by  any  motive 
of  policy  —  to  rouse  the  savages  on  the  eastern  and 
northern  frontiers  to  constant  hostilities  with  the 


188  FRENCH  AND   INDIAN   WARS. 

English  settlers.  In  this  policy  they  persevered 
until,  in  the  great  expedition  of  Wolfe,  in  the  year 
]  759,  Canada  fell  into  the  possession  of  the  British 
crown.  If  ever  a  nation  deserved  the  humiliation 
which  France  then  received,  France  deserved  it ; 
and  if  ever  the  governors  of  a  province  brought  upon 
themselves  their  own  fate,  it  was  the  governors  of 
.the  province  of  Canada. 

It  was  fortunate  for  Massachusetts,  and,  as  it  has 
proved,  it  has  been  fortunate  for  the  civilization  of 
America,  that  the  great  confederacy  of  the  Iroquois, 
who  at  home  occupied  the  greater  part  of  what  we 
know  as  the  State  of  New  York,  took  no  part  in 
these  murderous  and  treacherous  onslaughts  upon 
the  whites.  Students  of  history  have  traced  this 
neutrality  back  to  that  good  fortune  by  which  the  Hud- 
son River,  the  key  to  that  great  region,  was  settled 
by  the  Dutch  and  not  by  Englishmen  or  by  French- 
men. Englishmen  have  never  shown  any  aptness  in 
dealing  with  savage  tribes  ;  we  cannot  imagine  John 
Smith  or  John  Winthrop  as  conciliating  the  Iroquois 
by  the  arts  or  with  the  success  with  which  the  Dutch 
conciliated  them.  But  the  settlement  of  the  Dutch 
was  simply  a  settlement  of  tradesmen.  They  had  at 
the  outset  no  territorial  ambition ;  they  were  not 
attempting  to  add  a  new  province  to  their  country. 
The}'  made  their  stations  on  the  Hudson  River  as  a 
New  England  whaler  might  to-day  make  a  station  on 
the  northern  edge  of  Siberia,  to  try  out  his  oil  or  to 
repair  his  boats,  without  any  thought  of  adding  a 
province  to  the  rule  of  Massachusetts  or  Connecticut. 


FRENCH  AND   INDIAN   WARS.  189 

Going  thus  as  merchants  to  the  new  land,  it  was  as 
merchants  that  they  dealt  with  the  Iroquois.  From 
first  to  last  they  kept  faith  with  them,  as  merchants 
must  with  those  with  whom  they  have  to  do.  From 
first  to  last,  therefore,  the  Iroquois  had  justice  done 
to  them,  and  knew  that  they  could  place  full  confi- 
dence in  the  word  of  a  Dutch  trader  or  a  Dutch 
magistrate.  After  the  English  took  possession  of 
the  Dutch  settlements,  the  English  governors  had 
wit  enough  to  use  Dutch  traders  as  their  negotiators 
with  the  Iroquois.  As  the  immediate  consequence 
of  the  good  faith  thus  kept  with  them,  and  the 
advantages  which  the  Iroquois  derived  from  such 
peaceful  trade,  this  great  confederacy  was,  from  thr 
beginning  to  the  end,  a  rampart  for  the  English 
colonies  on  the  northwest,  against  the  incursions,  of 
France,  of  the  Jesuits,  and  of  their  savage  tools.  On 
the  north,  however,  and  on  the  northeast,  M«issa..,hu- 
setts  and  New  Hampshire  had  no  such  frontier.  On 
the  least  excuse,  or  on  no  excuse,  savages  of  the 
most  savage  type  were  ready  to  deliver  an  attack  on 
the  villages  of  the  pioneers.  The  French  governors 
of  Canada  maintained  a  standing  bounty  on  the 
scalps  of  any  whites  which  might  be  brought  in. 
They  asked  no  questions  for  conscience  sake  as  to 
how  these  scalps  were  obtained,  and  for  more  than 
fifty  years,  the  Indian  who  was  in  want  of  powder 
knew  that,  if  he  could  not  conveniently  trap  beaver 
for  sale,  if  it  were  more  easy  to  catch  a  white  woman 
or  a  white  child  picking  berries  outside  the  obsei  va- 
tion  of  the  men  of  a  frontier  village,  the  scalp  of 


190  FRENCH  AND   INDIAN   WARS. 

that  woman  or  that  child  would  buy  for  him  what- 
ever he  needed  in  the  market  of  Montreal.  In  this 
condition  of  things,  the  state  of  the  frontier  of  Mas- 
sachusetts, which  now  included  the  province  of 
Maine,  was  a  state  of  almost  perpetual  border  war. 

It  is  impossible,  within  the  compass  in  which  I  am 
to  deal  with  this  history,  to  attempt  the  wretched 
annals  of  such  excursions,  as  they  were  made  from 
year  to  year,  in  the  periods  when  King  William,  or 
Queen  Anne,  or  the  early  Georges  were  at  war  with 
France,  —  or,  in  periods  when  Europe  was  at  truce, 
when  the  quarrel  was  continued  in  the  forests  of 
New  England.  The  reader  must  remember  that 
those  forests  were  still  so  dense  and  the  ways  through 
them  so  hidden,  that  towns  which  we  have  spoken 
of  as  frontier  towns,  were  those  which  we  now 
regard  as  almost  close  to  the  capital  of  New  Eng- 
land. Thus  Andover,  Haverhill  and  Lancaster,  each 
of  them  now  within  an  hour's  ride  from  Boston,  are 
among  the  towns  whose  story  is  most  terrible. 
From  Schenectady  on  the  west,  to  the  settlements 
on  the  Kennebec  on  the  east,  no  place  was  free  from 
danger.  On  old  maps  the  scenes  of  massacre  used  to 
be  marked  with  crossed  swords  ;  and  one  who  studied 
those  maps  alone,  might  suppose  from  the  number 
of  such  records  of  horror  that  New  England  had 
been  a  veritable  Flanders  —  the  battle-ground  of 
America.  It  is  to  be  observed,  also,  that  in  such  wars 
—  if  that  name  may  be  given  to  these  atrocities  — 
the  result  for  the  savages  was  success  or  nothing. 
If  they  did  not  make  a  complete  surprise,  they 


FRENCH  AND   INDIAN   WARS.  191 

generally  retired  almost  immediately  from  the 
field  ;  if  the  surprise  were  complete,  they  killed  every 
man  whom  they  found  and  took  away  captive  every 
woman  and  every  child.  Thus  the  massacre  atSche- 
nectady,  at  Deerfield,  at  Haverhill,  and  many  smalle- 
villages  which  might  be  named,  almost  swept  awa} 
those  villages  as  they  then  were.  The  houses  were 
burned,  and  the  beginnings  had  to  be  made  over 
again. 

It  is  necessary  to  say  all  this,  in  order  to  under- 
stand why  the  government  of  Massachusetts,  through 
this  period  of  fifty  years,  engaged  itself  in  one  or 
another  offensive  operation  against  the  French. 
These  operations  never  took  the  form  of  retaliation 
against  their  frontier  settlements.  The  people  of 
Massachusetts  had  no  reason  for  obtaining  the 
scalps  of  Frenchmen  ;  they  had  no  Indian  allies  who 
would  have  gone  on  such  business  had  they  been  told 
to ;  and  they  were  well  enough  disposed  to  let  alone 
Canada  and  its  settlements  on  the  waters  of  the 
St.  Lawrence,  if  only  they  might  transact  their  own 
business  in  their  own  valleys  and  on  their  own 
hills.  But  there  was  statesmanship  enough  in  t.l it- 
government  of  Massachusetts  to  know  that  the>e 
atrocities  were  dictated  in  the  French  councils.  The 
powder  of  the  savages  was  from  French  arsenals, 
the  knives  were  from  the  French  armories,  and  the 
bounties  on  scalps  were  paid  from  the  French  treas- 
ury. There  were,  therefore,  constant  efforts  on  the 
part  of  Massachusetts  to  capture  the  French  forts  in 
Acadia  (which  we  call  Nova  Scotia),  those  in  New- 


192  FRENCH  AND  INDIAN    WARS. 

i'oundland,  and  on  the  river  and  gulf  of  St.  Law- 
rence, which  they  knew  to  be  the  bases  of  operation 
for  this  border  war.  With  the  instinct  of  seamen, 
—  perhaps  one  might  say  with  something  of  the 
blood  of  Northmen  —  they  preferred  to  carry  on 
these  attacks  by  water,  and  not  to  rely  on  the  more 
difficult  and  laborious  enterprise  which  involved 
marching  through  the  forests.  The  nistory  of 
eighty  years  includes  four  of  the  greater  expedi- 
tions which  were  set  on  foot  with  this  purpose.  Of 
these,  the  first  two  were  wholly  unsuccessful.  The 
last  two  involved  the  fall  of  Louisburg  and  Quebec. 
Historically  speaking,  and  in  the  minds  of  the  people 
of  Boston,  they  belonged  to  one  system  of  opera- 
tions ;  when  the  second  was  undertaken,  there  were 
men  who  recollected  the  failure  of  the  first ;  when 
the  third  was  undertaken,  there  were  men  who  recol- 
lected the  failure  of  the  second  ;  and,  in  the  armies 
before  Quebec,  there  were  those  who  recollected  the 
success  of  what  professional  soldiers  would  have 
called  the  mad  attack  on  Louisburg. 

However  disgraceful  was  the  alliance  between  the 
Stuarts  and  the  King  of  France,  it  was  an  alliance 
which  had  given  peace  to  the  frontier  settlements  of 
New  England.  As  long  as  James  II.  was  in  the 
pay  of  Louis,  no  Canadian  governor  could  with  de- 
cency unloose  his  savage  hounds  upon  the  New  Eng- 
landers,  even  though  those  New  Englanders  were 
heretics.  But  so  soon  as  William  came  upon  the 
throne,  with  the  immediate  and  necessary  war  with 


FRENCH  AND   INDIAN   WARS.  193 

France  as  the  ally  of  the  Stuarts,  this  peace  was  at 
an  end.  And,  as  I  have  already  said,  there  was  but 
little  peace  from  that  time  forward  until  the  end  of 
the  Seven  Years'  War.  These  short  pauses  of  hos- 
tilities may  be  looked  upon  rather  as  truces  in  which 
the  colonies  took  their  breath,  then  as  occasions  for 
real  pacific  development.  At  the  beginning  of  this 
period,  as  the  reader  knows,  Massachusetts  had  to 
pass  through  the  terrible  ordeal  of  the  Salem  witch- 
craft, and  at  the  same  time  to  submit,  unwillingly 
enough,  to  the  new  system  of  government  inaugu- 
rated by  William,  which  gave  to  her  a  royal 
governor. 

If  Massachusetts  was  to  have  a  royal  governor, 
she  meant  to  use  him  ;  and  at  once,  in  the  spring  of 
1690,  she  dispatched  a  force  of  eight  hundred  men 
under  command  of  Phipps,  in  eight  small  vessels ; 
this  captured  Port  Royal,  which  was  taken  almost 
by  surprise.  A  small  vessel  was  sent  to  England, 
begging  for  a  supply  of  arms  and  ammunition,  with 
a  force  of  the  king's  vessels,  to  attack  the  French 
by  sea,  while  the  colony  should  make  an  attack  by 
land.  The  king  had  too  much  to  do  in  Europe  to 
answer  this  request,  and  Massachusetts  proceeded 
alone,  relying  on  Connecticut  and  New  York  to 
attack  Montreal  by  land.  A  fleet  of  nearly  forty 
vessels,  with  two  thousand  men,  was  sent  against 
Quebec.  Unfortunately,  the  land  force  had  not 
succeeded.  Frontenac,  the  able  Frenchman  in  com- 
mand, concentrated  his  whole  force  at  Quebec, 
and  sent  an  insolent  reply  to  Sir  William  Phipps's 


194  FRENCH  AND  INDIAN  WARS. 

pompous  summons  to  surrender.  Phipps  landed  with 
twelve  or  thirteen  hundred  men,  and  his  ships  at- 
tacked the  town,  but  did  little  damage  by  their  guns, 
while  they  were  themselves  badly  injured  by  the  bat- 
teries. A  tempest  came  on,  which  drove  some  of  the 
vessels  from  their  anchors  and  scattered  the  fleet. 
Phipps  lost  in  all,  of  seamen  and  sailors,  two  hun- 
dred men,  his  army  suffering  from  the  small-pox. 
Thus  the  first  expedition  against  Canada  failed,  to 
the  great  disgust  of  the  people  and  to  the  injury  of 
Phipps's  popularity. 

It  was  however  determined  in  England,  as  in  New 
England,  that  the  enterprise  should  be  renewed.  It 
was  resolved  in  England  that  a  united  expedition, 
in  which  Massachusetts  should  furnish  the  land 
forces  under  Phipps's  command,  should  go  up  the 
St.  Lawrence  River,  and  take  Quebec  and  Montreal. 
Unfortunately,  the  government  at  home  undertook 
to  do  two  things  at  once,  instead  of  satisfying  itself 
with  one.  It  was  not  the  only  instance  where 
they  were  misled  by  what  poor  Lord  Salisbury,  two 
hundred  years  after,  called  looking  upon  maps  which 
have  too  small  a  scale.  They  sent  a  fleet  to  reduce 
Martinique  in  the  West  Indies,  and  directed  Sir  Fran- 
cis Wheeler,  the  commander  of  that  fleet,  after  he 
had  succeeded,  to  come  around  to  Boston  and  take 
Quebec  on  his  way  home.  Of  this  grand  plan  the 
misfortune  was  that,  before  he  arrived  in  Boston,  he 
had  buried,  in  the  West  Indies  or  in  the  ocean,  three 
quarters  of  the  sailors  and  soldiers  who  had  started 
under  his  command.  Those  who  survived  had  con- 


FRENCH  AND   INDIAN   WARS.  195 

traded  illness  in  the  West  Indies  and  brought  it 
with  them  to  Boston.  The  same  malignant  disease 
spread  in  that  town,  and  worked  more  havoc  than 
had  ever  been  experienced  from  any  plague.  It  was 
impossible  to  proceed  with  a  force  thus  diminished, 
and  Sir  Francis  Wheeler  therefore  arranged  that, 
the  next  year,  two  thousand  men  should  be  raised 
in  the  colonies  and  two  thousand  more  should  be 
sent  from  England,  that  the  English  forces  and  those 
from  New  England  should  join  at  Canso  on  the  first 
of  June,  should  sail  up  the  St.  Lawrence  River,  and 
take  Montreal  and  Quebec.  But  this  expedition  fell 
through,  Sir  William  Phipps  was  removed  from  the 
government,  and  the  plans  against  Canada  were  not 
renewed  for  some  years. 

In  1710,  however,  twenty-one  years  after  the  first 
failures,  a  similar  expedition  was  attempted,  this 
time  with  a  considerable  force  from  England.  Two 
regiments  from  New  England  were  added  to  it,  and 
with  an  army  of  seven  thousand  men  in  good  condition, 
the  English  admiral  sailed  from  Boston  on  the  thir- 
tieth of  July,  1711.  Nicholson,  who  was  to  command 
the  land  army,  went  to  Albany  the  same  day,  the 
plan  being  essentially  the  same  as  that  of  1690.  But 
when  the  fleet,  which  consisted  of  fifteen  men-of-war 
and  transports,  arrived  in  the  mouth  of  the  St.  Law- 
rence, the  pilots,  some  French  and  some  English,  did 
not  well  agree  upon  the  course  to  be  pursued.  A 
fresh  storm  coming  up  from  the  southeast,  the  ships 
brought  to,  being  out  of  sight  of  land  and  out  of 
soundings. 


196  FRENCH  AND  INDIAN  WARS. 

Within  two  or  three  hours  some  of  the  transports 
were  among  the  breakers  ;  eight  or  nine  ships  were 
there  wrecked  and  lost.  About  midnight  a  thou- 
sand men  had  been  drowned,  and  six  or  seven  hundred 
men  saved  by  the  other  ships  only.  Still  all  the 
men-of-war  escaped,  and  they  might  have  gone  up 
to  Quebec  but,  in  a  council  of  war  it  was  resolved 
to  abandon  the  expedition,  and  the  admiral,  with 
the  English  contingent,  returned  to  Portsmouth.  It 
was  at  once  intimated  in  Massachusetts  that  from 
the  beginning  he  had  no  heart  for  the  expedition 
and  that  he  meant  that  it  should  fail. 

The  Massachusetts  transports  were  all  preserved 
excepting  one  and  all  the  crews  were  saved.  The 
disappointment  enraged  the  provincials.  They 
courted  an  inquiry  in  England,  expecting  to  show  to 
the  officers  of  the  Crown  that  the  blame  was  not 
with  them,  but  no  such  inquiry  was  made. 

Such  were  the  two  more  important  offensive  oper- 
ations which  belonged  to  the  wars  generally  known 
in  our  history  as  King  William's  War  and  Queen 
Anne's  War.  The  failure  of  the  two  expeditions 
against  Quebec  offered  but  a  poor  parallel  to  the 
successes  of  Marl  bo  rough  on  the  other  side  of  the 
ocean.  Meanwhile,  at  the  same  time,  the  attacks  of 
the  Canadians  with  their  savage  allies  were  of  a 
kind  to  stimulate  to  the  utmost  the  people  of  Mas- 
sachusetts, and  compel  them  to  make  some  effort  to 
cut  off  the  root  of  their  sufferings. 

In  what  is  known  as  King  William's  War  — 
namely,  in  the  period  between  1689  and  1699 


FRENCH  AND   INDIAN    WARS.  197 

—  the  series  of  massacres  on  the  frontier  was  such 
as  to  arrest  all  progress  on  the  north  and  northeast 
of  Massachusetts.  That  province  now  held  juris- 
diction in  Maine,  and  so  weak  were  the  inhabitants 
of  New  Hampshire  that  she  considered  rightly  that 
it  was  her  duty  to  protect  them  as  well  as  the  set- 
tlers on  their  east  or  south.  It  was  very  certain  that 
no  Jesuit  priest  and  no  Indian  chief  made  any  dis- 
tinction between  the  arbitrary  geographical  lines 
which  one  charter  or  another  drew  for  the  bound- 
aries of  these  colonies. 

It  is  useless  now  to  attempt  the  sad  annals  of  suc- 
cessive inroads;  the  story  is  always  the  same,  if  it 
be  the  story  of  success  on  the  part  of  the  invader. 
He  attacks,  at  night  and  by  surprise,  a  sleeping  com- 
munity ;  he  kills  all  the  men  ;  and  he  carries  into 
captivity  all  the  women  and  the  children. 

In  these  ten  years,  the  presence  of  a  strong  force 
of  Massachusetts  soldiers  twice  compelled  the  savage 
chieftains  to  agree  to  a  temporary  peace,  so  that 
there  are  two  or  three  winters  which  are  exempt  from 
these  horrors.  But,  in  ten  years  only,  Hutchinson 
records  sixteen  inroads,  in  each  of  which  a  consider- 
able number  of  persons  was  killed,  and  an  even 
larger  number,  perhaps,  carried  away  as  prisoners. 

In  nine  years'  time,  he  gives  a  record  of  one 
hundred  and  seventy-two  who  were  killed  in  these 
atrocities,  one  hundred  and  fifty  who  were  taken 
prisoners,  and  of  one  hundred  and  seventy-four 
more  where  there  is  no  discrimination,  and  we  do 
not  know  whether  they  were  left  dead  or  were  taken 


198  FRENCH  AND  INDIAN   WARS. 

away  to  die.  Here  are  four  hundred  and  ninety-six 
killed  or  captured,  from  the  scanty  northern  frontier 
of  a  province  which  at  that  time  had  not  for  its 
whole  population  sixty  thousand  people. 

It  will  be  readily  seen  how  bitter  must  have  been 
the  sentiment  of  hatred  which  was  thus  cultivated, 
and  how  determined  the  resolution  for  safety  and 
for  revenge.  Without  attempting  to  give  any  detail 
of  such  atrocities,  it  will  be  enough  to  repeat  here 
the  story  of  the  massacre  at  Haverhill,  which  was 
attacked  and  burned  in  March,  1698. 

A  party  of  the  enemy  had  attacked  Andover, 
which  is  but  twenty-five  miles  from  Boston,  where 
they  killed  seven  of  the  inhabitants,  took  some  pris- 
oners, and  burned  many  houses.  On  their  return 
home,  crossing  the  Merrimac  River,  they  took  alarm, 
and  left  their  prisoners  to  escape,  committing  some 
ravage,  however,  as  they  crossed  the  river  north- 
ward, upon  the  town  of  Haverhill.  Perhaps  they 
reported  the  unprotected  condition  of  the  town. 

In  March,  another  party  came  down  upon  that 
place,  burned  nine  persons,  and  killed  or  captured 
about  iorty.  One  of  the  captives  was  Hannah 
Duston,  in  whose  memory  a  statue  now  stands, 
on  the  line  of  the  railroad,  at  the  place  where  she 
made  her  escape.  She  was  at  home  when  her  house 
was  burned,  unable  indeed  to  fly,  as  she  would  have 
thought,  as  she  had  an  infant  but  a  week  old.  Her 
husband,  with  seven  older  children,  made  their  escape. 
Hannah  Duston,  with  her  nurse  and  her  baby,  were 
taken  by  the  Indians,  and  compelled  to  march  twelve 


FRENCH  AND   INDIAN   WARS.  199 

miles..  They  beat  out  the  poor  child's  brains  before 
they  had  gone  very  far.  In  their  rapid  retreat  they 
dragged  the  women  along  a  hundred  and  fifty  miles, 
and  then  told  them  that  they  must  be  stripped  and 
run  the  gauntlet  through  the  yillage. 

The  two  women  had  been  assigned  as  servants 
to  an  Indian  family,  who  had  as  another  slave  an 
English  boy  who  had  been  prisoner  a  year  and  a 
half.  The  terror  of  the  gauntlet  seems  to  have 
inspired  Hannah  Duston  with  resolution.  She  pre- 
vailed upon  the  woman  who  was  her  companion, 
and  the  English  boy,  to  join  her  in  destroying  their 
tyrants.  The  Indians  kept  no  watch,  for  they  re- 
garded the  boy  as  one  of  themselves,  and  they  de- 
spised women  too  much  to  fear  them.  A  little 
before  day  Hannah  Duston  awoke,  and  finding  the 
whole  company  in  a  sound  sleep,  wakened  her  two 
companions.  With  the  hatchets  of  the  Indians  they 
"  silenced  such  as  they  begun  with,  and  they  took 
care  not  to  make  so  much  noise  as  to  waken  the 
rest."  They  thus  killed  the  whole  family,  excepting 
a  boy  who  was  a  favorite,  whom  they  spared,  and 
an  old  woman  who  feigned  death  but  escaped  with 
the  boy. 

Determined  on  full  revenge,  they  took  the  scalps 
from  ten  to  bring  home  with  them.  Their  courage 
was  successful ;  with  the  double  danger  from  their 
pursuers  and  from  famine  they  traveled  home,  and 
arrived  safe  with  their  trophies.  The  General  Court 
rewarded  them  with  a  present  of  fifty  pounds,  and 
even  the  distant  colony  of  Maryland,  having  heard 


200  FRENCH  AND  INDIAN   WARS. 

the  fame  of  this  exploit,  sent  them  a  valuable  pres- 
ent in  recognition  of  their  courage. 

There  is  scarcely  a  town  in  Massachusetts  or  New 
Hampshire  which  in  those  days  could  in  any  sense, 
be  regarded  as  on  the  frontier  but  holds  some  such 
story  of  horror  on  its  early  records. 

Another  of  these  assaults  which  is  still  well  re- 
membered at  the  place  where  it  was  made,  was  that 
attack  at  Deerfield.  This  village,  situated  on  one  of 
the  most  charming  terraces  of  the  valley  of  the  Con- 
necticut, had  been  ravaged  in  the  last  war.  Its 
position  was  known  by  the  partisan  soldiers  of  Can- 
ada, and  one  of  them,  named  Rouville,  was  permitted 
to  take  the  charge  of  a  party  to  destroy  it.  He, 
with  four  brothers,  led  two  hundred  and  fifty  Indians 
and  Frenchmen  to  the  attack.  The  drifts  of  snow 
around  the  little  village  were  so  deep  that  its  stock- 
ade was  buried  in  places,  and  could  be  passed  over. 
The  enemy  approached  it  unobserved,  on  a  winter's 
night  —  the  twenty-ninth  of  February,  1704. 

Not  long  before  the  break  of  day,  the  sentries  left 
their  posts,  and  the  savages  of  both  nationalities  at- 
tacked. They  slaughtered  sixty  persons,  and  took 
a  hundred  prisoners.  For  twenty-four  hours  they 
burned,  plundered  and  destroyed  the  village,  and 
then  withdrew  to  the  woods  with  their  captives. 
The  alarm  was  given  in  the  towns  below,  but  the 
soldiers  seem  to  have  marched  without  snowshoes, 
and  were  obliged  to  abandon  the  pursuit.  The 
successful  party,  with  captives  and  booty,  reached 
Quebec  in  twenty-five  days. 


FRENCH  AND   INDIAN   WARS.  201 

John  Williams  was  the  minister  of  Deerfield,  and 
was  its  leader  in  war  as  well  as  in  peace.  Years 
afterward  he  published  an  account  of  his  captivity. 
He  was  aroused  from  sleep  by  the  noise  of  axes  and 
hatchets  striking  against  his  doors  and  windows. 
He  leaped  from  bed,  but  found  his  house  already 
entered.  He  aimed  a  pistol  at  the  first  Indian  who 
attacked  him,  but  it  missed  fire  and  he  was  bound. 
After  nearly  an  hour  he  was  permitted  to  dress  him- 
self, and  his  family  received  the  same  permission. 
When  the  sun  was  an  hour  high  they  were  taken  out 
of  the  house,  and  saw  that  the  village  was  already 
in  flames. 

On  the  second  day  his  wife  was  ta.ken  from  him 
and  killed  by  the  savage  who  had  her  for  a  prisoner. 
Nineteen  of  his  fellow-prisoners  were  murdered  by 
the  way,  and  two  starved  to  death.  Under  such 
horrors  he  arrived  in  Montreal,  and  then  received 
the  courtesies  of  the  French  governor  who  had  per- 
mitted these  atrocities.  After  two  years  and  a  half, 
some  of  his  friends  in  Massachusetts  obtained  an  ex- 
change of  prisoners,  and,  with  fifty-seven  of  his  part- 
ners in  captivity,  he  sailed  from  Quebec  and  arrived 
in  Boston.  One  of  his  daughters  eventually  became 
a  Catholic  and  was  married  to  an  Indian  husband. 
It  is  believed  to  be  one  of  her  descendants  who  after- 
ward supposed  himself  to  be  a  Bourbon  prince  and 
the  true  claimant  of  the  throne  of  France. 

Passing  from  these  atrocities  to  the  war  which 
marked  the  reign  of  George  I.,  we  take  note  of 
the  destruction  by  the  Massachusetts  forces  of  the 


202  FRENCH  AND  INDIAN  WARS. 

Indian  post  at  Norridgewock,  and  the  church  which 
Rasle  had  built  there.  This  priest,  a  devoted  Jesuit, 
had  been  for  nearly  forty  years  the  spiritual  di- 
rector of  the  Penobscots,  and  in  that  capacity,  had 
directed  their  attacks  upon  the  frontiers.  He  was 
known  and  thoroughly  hated  among  the  border  set- 
tlers of  Maine  and  New  Hampshire,  and  seems,  in- 
deed, to  have  been  called  "  The  Jesuit,"  as  by  a 
proud  pre-eminence. 

Four  companies  of  the  frontier  levies,  consisting 
of  two  hundred  and  eight  men,  with  three  volun- 
teers from  the  Six  Nations,  undertook  the  surprise 
of  the  settlement  at  Norridgewock.  This  was  a 
village  on  the  forks  of  the  Kennebec,  still  known 
by  the  same  name,  and  about  fifteen  miles  north  of 
Augusta,  the  present  capital  of  the  State.  Appar- 
ently the  Indians  had  no  sentries ;  from  a  prisoner 
whom  they  took  on  the  evening  of  the  tenth  of 
August,  and  who  was  the  wife  of  Bomazeen,  long 
known  as  a  leading  Indian  chief,  they  received  full  ac- 
count of  the  condition  of  the  village.  On  the  twelfth 
of  August  they  approached  it,  and  divided  their  forces, 
so  that  a  part  might  handle  the  Indians  in  their  corn- 
fields, and  the  rest  surprise  the  village.  They  came 
upon  it  at  three  in  the  afternoon,  and  found  no  one 
in  sight,  all  the  people  being  in  their  wigwams.  The 
Englishmen  advanced  softly  and  silently,  and  were 
within  close  fire  when  they  were  discovered.  The 
warriors,  sixty  in  number,  came  out  to  fight ;  the 
rest  fled  for  their  lives. 

Moulton,  the  English  commander,  had  not  suffered 


FRENCH  AND  INDIAN    WARS.  203 

his  men  to  fire  at  random,  but  had  bidden  them  hold 
their  fire  till  the  Indians'  guns  were  empty.  His 
foresight  was  justified  ;  in  the  sudden  surprise  the 
Indians  shot  over  the  heads  of  their  assailants,  who 
did  not  lose  a  man.  The  English  fired  in  return 
and  made  great  slaughter ;  the  Indians  had  only 
a  chance  for  a  second  volley  and  then  fled  towards 
the  river.  The  water  was  low,  and  but  a  few  of  them 
succeeded  in  fording  the  stream ;  others  escaped  by 
swimming.  The  English  returned  to  the  village, 
where  they  found  "  the  Jesuit  "  in  one  of  the  wig- 
wams, "  firing  upon  a  few  of  our  men  who  had  not 
pursued."  Moulton  had  given  orders  not  to  kill 
"  the  Jesuit,"  but  when  one  of  the  Englishmen 
was  wounded  by  his  shot,  the  lieutenant,  Jacques, 
broke  open  the  door  and  shot  Rasle  through  the 
head.  Moulton  always  regretted  this  action,  and 
expressed  his  disapproval  of  it,  but  Jacques  in- 
sisted that  he  had  found  Rasle  loading  his  gun, 
and  that  he  had  declared  that  he  would  neither 
give  nor  take  quarter.  There  can  be  no  "question 
that  Rasle  interpreted  his  duties  as  a  leader  of  the 
church  militant  in  the  most  literal  way,  and  did 
not  think  that  it  was  above  or  below  him  to  handle 
a  gun  in  fight. 

The  English  cleared  the  village  of  the  Indian  sav- 
ages, and  plundered  and  destroyed  the  wigwams. 
They  took  the  plate  from  the  Roman  Catholic 
church,  and  broke  the  crucifixes  which  they  found 
there ;  for  which  they  were  bitterly  accused  of  pro- 
fanity by  Charlevoix,  in  his  account  of  the  defeat. 


204  FRENCH  AND  INDIAN   WARS. 

After  the  English  withdrew,  the  Indians  returned  to 
their  village,  and,  according  to  Charlevoix,  made  it 
their  first  care  to  weep  over  the  body  of  their  holy 
missionary,  while  their  women  were  looking  out  for 
herbs  and  plants  with  which  to  heal  the  wounded. 
They  buried  him  "  in  the  same  place  where,  the  even- 
ing before,  he  had  celebrated  the  sacred  mysteries" 
—  that  is,  where  his  altar  stood  before  the  church 
was  burned. 

This  success  broke  the  force  of  the  Norridgewock 
Indians,  and  was,  indeed,  the  most  critical  of  those 
frontier  fights  in  that  war. 

The  government  increased  the  premium  on  Indian 
scalps  to  one  hundred  pounds  each,  in  the  inflated 
currency  of  that  time.  It  was  with  a  company  of 
volunteers  who  had  gone  out  with  no  better  motive 
than  securing  this  bounty,  that  Lovell  made  one  and 
another  invasion  of  what  is  now  the  western  part  of 
the  State  of  Maine.  With  thirty-three  men,  on  the 
eighth  of  May,  he  came  to  the  pond  which  still  bears 
his  name. 

Doubtful  if  they  were  not  drawn  into  ambuscade, 
they  laid  down  their  bags  and  searched  cautiously  for 
the  enemy.  But  the  Indians  were  more  skillful  than 
they  at  that  sort  of  strategy ;  they  seized  the  bags  in 
turn,  and  awaited  the  return  of  the  owners.  When 
these  appeared,  they  found  themselves  at  once  at- 
tacked by  a  force  of  eighty  men.  They  retreated 
to  the  pond,  and  continued  the  battle,  in  unequal 
numbers,  for  five  or  six  hours.  Nearly  half  their 
number  were  killed,  eight  of  their  wounded  com- 


FRENCH  AND   INDIAN    WARS.  205 

panions  were  left  in  the  woods  without  food  ;  only 
sixteen  returned  to  the  frontier  unhurt.  One  is  glad 
to  read  that  this  misfortune  discouraged  scalping- 
parties. 

But  after  Rasle's  death,  all  the  Indians  were  at 
liberty  to  follow  their  own  inclinations,  which  were 
for  peace.  The  next  year  a  treaty  was  made,  which 
was  succeeded  by  a  long  period  of  quiet  on  the  fron- 
tier. And  in  all  discussions  of  the  attitude  of  the 
Jesuit  body  in  these  horrible  contests,  it  must  be 
remembered  that  as  soon  as  Rasle,  the  most  distin- 
guished of  their  number,  ceased  to  direct  the  forces, 
there  was  a  perfect  good  understanding  on  the  fron- 
tier. It  proved,  indeed,  that  the  Indians  preferred 
to  trade  with  the  English  trading-houses,  and  com- 
merce, as  has  so  often  happened,  brought  about  the 
good  understanding  for  which  war  had  tried  in  vain. 


CHAPTER   XIV. 

LOUISBURG. 

THE  most  important  military  operation  under- 
taken in  the  earlier  part  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  by  the  New  England  colonies  under  the  lead 
of  Massachusetts,  was  the  capture  of  Louisburg.  Its 
full  importance  of  the  victory  did  not  then  appear. 
A  worthy  achievement  in  itself,  a  part  of  its  apparent 
value  was  given  away  when  the  whole  island  of 
Cape  Breton  was  ceded  back  to  France  at  the  end  of 
the  war.  But  the  importance  of  the  expedition,  then 
not  apparent,  lay  largely  in  that  it  was  the  united 
act  of  the  Colonies,  and  not  only  the  united  act  but 
the  practical  proof  of  the  united  military  power  of 
the  New  England  colonists.  The  union  of  the 
American  Colonies,  in  so  far  as  it  was  accomplished, 
for  military  purposes,  both  before  this  and  after  it, 
had  an  importance  not  so  easily  seen  at  the  time  as 
now.  It  made  familiar  to  them  the  idea  of  union 
for  military  purposes  which  readily  became  actual 
fact  in  the  year  1776. 

Cape  Breton  was  one  of  the  recent  colonies  of  the 
French  in  America.  Neglected  until  the  time  of 
the  treaty  of  Utrecht,  it  subsequently  sprang  into 
great  importance  which  it  retained  for  some  fifty 

206 


LOUISBURG.  207 

years  and  then  sank  back  into  a  state  resembling 
its  primeval  quiescence.  Ever  since  the  discovery 
and  exploration  of  the  Mississippi  by  La  Salle,  the 
colonial  mind  of  France  had  been  inflamed  by  the 
great  idea  of  an  empire  embracing  the  valleys  of  the 
Mississippi  and  the  St.  Lawrence,  each  communicating 
with  the  mother  country  by  sea  and  bound  to  each 
other  by  a  row  of  forts  ensuring  the  free  navigation 
of  the  Great  Lakes.  A  great  colony  with  two  capi- 
tals, New  Orleans  and  Quebec,  surrounding  and  hem- 
ming in  the  English  colonies  on  the  Atlantic  seaboard 
would  insure  to  France  the  practical  sovereignty  over 
the  vast  spaces  of  undiscovered  country  to  the  west 
and  the  northwest. 

With  this  idea  in  mind,  everything  possible  had 
been  done  to  strengthen  the  communication  between 
Canada  and  Louisiana.  Having  been  first  in  the 
field,  the  French  had  gone  vigorously  to  work  to 
make  firm  their  position,  and  in  the  year  when  Gov- 
ernor Spotswood  was  crossing  the  Blue  Mountains 
of  Virginia  with  his  Knights  of  the  Golden  Spur, 
only  to  see  from  the  summits  the  fertile  country  of 
Kentucky,  the  French  were  already  firmly  intrenched 
far  to  the  west  on  the  Mississippi  and  Illinois  Rivers 
and  all  along  the  Great  Lakes.  This  system,  how- 
ever, by  no  means  so  far  developed  at  an  earlier 
time,  had  in  the  year  1712  received  a  severe  blow, 
when  by  the  Treaty  of  Utrecht,  Newfoundland  and 
Acadia  had  been  ceded  to  England.  By  the  ces- 
sion of  these  colonies  at  the  very  mouth  of  the  St. 
Lawrence,  the  certainty  of  the  free  navigation  of 


208  LOUISBURG. 

that  river  so  necessary  to  the  communication  be- 
tween Canada  and  France,  was  seriously  endangered. 

The  cession  struck  a  blow  at  the  very  idea  then  in 
its  infancy  of  a  two-headed  colony  controlling  free 
waterway  from  the  Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence  and  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico.  With  the  mouth  of  the  St.  Law- 
rence blockaded  the  scheme  seemed  nipped  in  the 
bud. 

It  was  with  these  ideas  in  view,  doubtless,  that 
immediately  after  the  treaty  of  Utrecht  the  French 
set  about  the  founding  of  New  Orleans  to  make  sure 
of  one  end  of  their  great  possessions.  To  do  what 
they  could  for  the  other  they  set  about  the  coloniza- 
tion of  Cape  Breton.  Newfoundland  commanded 
the  Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence  on  the  north,  Acadia  com- 
manded it  on  the  south.  The  island  of  Cape  Breton 
lies  directly  between  ;  and  this  island,  hitherto  over- 
looked as  unimportant,  the  French  at  once  proceeded 
to  settle ;  and,  upon  it,  they  began  the  building  of 
what  was  intended  to  be  the  most  impregnable  for- 
tified town  upon  the  American  Continent.  This 
they  named  first  Havre  a  1'Anglais,  and  afterward, 
for  their  ruling  monarch,  Louisburg. 

Such  was  the  importance  of  the  Island  of  Cape 
Breton,  called  by  the  French  at  this  time  Isle  Royale. 
Its  importance  lay  only  in  its  position.  It  had  no 
trade,  no  industries,  no  agriculture  to  speak  of,  the 
chief  business  of  the  inhabitants  being  fishing.  Isle 
Royale  became  the  great  center  for  the  French 
fishers,  and  in  time  of  peace  it  was  little  more.  In 
time  of  war,  however,  as  may  be  readily  seen  by  a 


LOUISBURG.  209 

glance  at  the  map,  it  became  singularly  important 
to  the  French  both  as  an  entrepot  and  as  a  base  of 
operations.  Thus  the  fortifications  were  pressed 
with  exceeding  vigor  and  although  they  were  not 
finished  in  the  year  1744  when  war  again  broke  out 
between  France  and  England,  they  were  at  least 
so  far  advanced  that  the  town  was  held  to  be  im- 
pregnable and  was  boastfully  called  the  Dunkirk,  or 
sometimes  the  Gibraltar,  of  America. 

To  whom  first  occurred  the  idea  of  an  expedition 
against  Louisburg  to  be  undertaken  jointly  by  the 
English  Colonies,  cannot  be  exactly  stated.  But  the 
honor  of  first  bringing  the  idea  before  the  Assembly, 
of  putting  it  into  practical  form  and  of  pressing  it 
to  a  successful  venture,  belongs  to  Governor  Shirley. 

In  the  year  1744  war  was  declared  between  France 
and  England.  Whatever  this  may  have  meant  in 
the  Old  World,  the  declaration  was  in  the  New  more 
a  matter  of  form  than  anything  else,  for  it  can 
hardly  be  said  that  there  had  been  any  peace  be- 
tween the  French  and  English  Colonies  for  the  last 
fifty  years  or  more.  But  the  formal  declaration 
served  at  least  to  arouse  and  encourage  the  energy 
of  both  sides,  and  the  Governor  of  Cape  Breton  hear- 
ing of  it  before  the  English  Colonists  did,  at  once  sent 
an  expedition  to  seize  the  island  of  Canso,  one  of 
the  centers  of  the  English  fishing  business  in  those 
parts.  The  expedition  succeeded  at  Canso,  but  failed 
in  an  attack  on  Annapolis,  and  returned  to  Louisburg 
with  very  many  fishing  vessels  as  prizes,  having 
struck  a  serious  blow  at  the  English  fishing  interest. 


210  LOUIS-BURG. 

A  desire  for  retaliation  at  once  naturally  arose  in 
New  England,  and  Shirley,  taking  advantage  of  the 
popular  feeling,  at  once  communicated  to  the  House, 
in  great  secrecy,  a  project  for  the  capture  of  Louis- 
burg.  He  pointed  out  the  advantages  of  the  time, 
having  obtained  information  as  to  the  state  of  the 
town  and  the  garrison ;  he  spoke  of  the  union  of  all 
the  colonies ;  he  suggested  the  co-operation  of  Com- 
modore Warren  who  with  an  English  fleet  was  now 
in  the  West  Indies.  The  House  was  at  first  some- 
what cautious.  But  the  matter  becoming  public, 
despite  great  efforts  to  keep  it  secret,  the  popular 
voice  pronounced  unanimously  in  favor  of  it.  In 
fact  public  opinion  became  so  strong  that  the  House 
was  driven  into  action  and  finally  decided  to  under- 
take the  expedition. 

Shirley  had  contemplated  the  joining  of  all  the 
English  provinces.  But  no  colony  outside  of  New 
England  joined  in  the  undertaking.  They  were 
farther  away  and  had  their  own  affairs  to  attend  to, 
and  it  may  be  that  being  less  accurately  informed 
upon  the  matter  than  the  New  Englanders  the  en- 
terprise loomed  up  before  them  in  proportions  too 
dreadful  to  be  thought  of.  However  that  may  have 
been,  the  expedition  was  made  up  of  troops  from 
Massachusetts,  Connecticut,  New  Hampshire  and 
Rhode  Island  with  the  addition  of  stores  sent  by 
New  York  and  Pennsylvania.  They  made  up  a 
little  army  of  four  thousand  in  all,  a  force,  had 
they  known  it,  more  than  double  that  which  served 
as  the  garrison  of  Louisburg. 


LOUISBURG.  211 

Shirley  had  also  seen  the  necessity  of  naval  co- 
operation and  with  that  view  had  succeeded  in 
obtaining  from  the  ministry  an  order  to  Warren 
to  repair  to  Boston  to  make  his  fleet  useful  for 
the  defense  of  the  fisheries.  This  order  came  only 
just  in  time,  for  Warren  having  been  previously 
invited  to  the  enterprise  by  Shirley,  had  declined 
to  busy  himself  about  it.  On  receiving  his  orders, 
however,  he  had  at  once  betaken  himself  from  the 
West  Indies  to  Boston,  on  the  way  to  which  place 
he  heard  that  the  armament  had  sailed,  and  at  once 
turned  to  join  it,  which  he  succeeded  in  doing  at 
the  right  moment,  and  so  was  of  excellent  service. 
The  command  of  the  expedition  was  given  to  William 
Pepperell  of  Jeffery.  He  was  by  profession  a  mer- 
chant, and  by  no  means  experienced  in  warlike  mat- 
ters, but  he  threw  himself  into  the  enterprise  with 
his  whole  heart  and  his  example  was  followed  by 
the  people  in  general,  so  that  it  was  without  difficulty 
that  the  quotas  were  filled  up.  The  expedition  ren- 
dezvoused at  Canso  toward  the  end  of  April  and 
according  to  Shirley's  directions  prepared  to  make  a 
landing  in  Gabarus  Bay. 

From  a  ship  off  Louisburg  (for  instance,  one  of 
Commodore  Warren's  ships  in  the  month  of  May, 
1745)  the  view  of  the  shore  of  Cape  Breton  would 
be  somewhat  as  follows :  Looking  to  the  northwest 
(that  is,  straight  ashore),  we  see  to  the  left  the  town 
of  Louisburg,  at  the  base  of  Rochfort  Point  which 
stretches  out  to  sea.  A  little  more  than  a  mile  away 
to  the  right  is  Lighthouse  Point  and  between  the 


212  LOUISBURG. 

two  is  the  entrance  to  the  harbor,  which  widens  out 
behind  the  two  points  so  that  once  in,  it  is  almost 
three  miles  from  end  to  end.  But  this  entrance  to 
the  harbor,  although  one  mile  across  from  point  to 
point,  is  in  reality  a  fairly  narrow  channel.  For 
right  between  the  two  headlands  is  St.  John's  island 
(whereon  the  French  have  erected  a  battery  of  thirty- 
odd  guns)  some  four  hundred  and  fifty  feet  long,  be- 
tween which  and  the  town  itself  is  such  a  chain  of 
rocks  as  to  be  impassable.  Therefore  any  vessel 
going  in  or  coming  out  must  pass  between  Light- 
house Point  and  the  battery  on  the  island. 

This  battery  faced  the  mouth  of  the  harbor  and 
had  twenty-two  embrasures  for  as  many  thirty-six 
or  forty-eight-pounders  beside  the  ordnance.  On 
the  north  shore  of  the  harbor,  about  a  mile  to  the 
northward  (not  on  Lighthouse  Point,  but  across  the 
harbor),  is  the  Grand  or  Royal  Battery  whereon  are 
mounted  thirty-five  forty-two-pounders.  Such  in 
general  was  the  appearance  of  Louisburg  and  its 
harbor  from  a  ship  lying  off  the  entrance.  Such  it 
would  have  appeared  to  Pepperell  as  he  looked  over 
the  situation  and  considered  it,  had  he  not  already 
made  up  his  mind  where  best  a  landing  and  an  at- 
tack might  be  made. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  no  such  survey  was 
made  by  Pepperell.  Gabarus  Bay,  to  the  south  of  the 
town,  had  been  selected  probably  some  time  before  as 
a  point  for  landing  the  army  and  it  is  not  likely  that 
any  of  the  English  ships  appeared  off  Louisburg  be- 
fore the  thirtieth  of  April,  on  which  day,  early  in  the 


LOUISBURG.  213 

morning,  the  New  England  troops  landed  and  until 
which  day  the  French  had  no  manner  of  knowledge 
of  the  impending  attack. 

The  place  of  landing  was  a  spot  known  as  Fresh- 
water Cove,  some  three  miles  and  a  half  from  the 
town  along  the  shore  (away  from  the  harbor)  to  the 
west.  From  this  place  the  army  moved  toward  the 
town  and  made  their  camp  at  a  point,  two  miles  dis- 
tant from  it,  still  on  the  seashore,  called  Flat  Point. 
Here  they  encamped  on  either  side  of  a  brook  which 
ran  into  the  sea  near  the  cove.  Three  regiments 
were  upon  the  side  toward  the  town,  the  two  other 
regiments  away  from  it,  and  on  this  side  also  was 
General  Pepperell's  headquarters. 

Even  while  the  camp  was  being  pitched,  the  first 
success  had  been  attained.  William  Vaughan,  who 
was  well  acquainted  with  the  country,  having  been 
here  the  previous  year  with  a  party  of  four  hundred 
had  almost  immediately  upon  landing  pushed  around 
by  the  city  to  the  harbor  with  a  view  to  destroying 
certain  magazines.  The  officers  in  charge  of  the 
Royal  Battery  seeing  the  smoke  thought  that  the 
whole  provincial  army  was  upon  them. 

Having  but  little  confidence  in  the  men  under 
their  command  they  spiked  the  guns,  tumbled  the 
ammunition  into  the  water  and  made  their  escape 
to  the  city.  Vaughan  upon  this  moved  forward 
and  occupied  the  battery  at  first  with  only  thirteen 
men.  With  these  few  he  repelled  an  attack  made 
upon  him  by  the  French  who  had  no  sooner  lost  the 
battery  than  they  desired  to  get  it  back  again  ;  and 


214  LOUISBURG. 

finally  on  the  arrival  of  reinforcements  Vaughan  pro- 
ceeded to  drill  out  the  spikes  from  the  guns  and  the 
Grand  Battery  was  ready  to  do  effective  service 
against  the  Island  Battery  and  the  city. 

The  first  step  having  been  successfully  made, 
the  New  Englanders  turned  their  attentions  to  thoj 
actual  investiture  of  the  place.  A  landing  might 
be  made,  a  battery  taken,  by  surprise,  but  Louisburg, 
the  town  itself,  must  be  approached  with  more  re- 
spect. Either  its  walls  must  be  so  battered  that 
an  assault  might  be  made,  or  it  must  be  invested  so 
that  it  might  be  forced  to  surrender.  In  either  case 
siege  works  must  go  up. 

It  may  be  that  when  the  New  Englanders  were 
once  well  landed  and  ready  to  begin  the  investiture, 
they  looked  upon  the  fortifications  with  some,  mis- 
givings, with  some  natural  failing  of  the  enthusiasm 
which  had  brought  them  thither.  It  may  be  that 
Lieutenant-Colonel  Gridley,  the  engineer,  as  he  in- 
spected the  formidable  works  before  him  with  a  view 
to  throwing  up  batteries,  felt  in  his  heart  some  doubts 
as  to  the  possibilities  of  a  successful  outcome  of  the 
siege.  Indeed,  such  doubts,  such  apprehensions 
would  have  been  by  no  means  out  of  place.  Here 
was  Louisburg,  called  the  Dunkirk  of  America,  for- 
tified by  the  scientific  rules  of  the  great  art  of  war 
and  garrisoned  by  regular  troops  of  Louis  XV.  Here 
was  to  be  no  Indian  foray,  no  partisan  warfare. 

In  that  town  was  extended  to  the  New  World  the 
prestige  of  the  armies  of  France.  It  was  the  incar- 
nation of  the  Art  of  War  in  the  Western  Continent, 


LOU1SBUMG.  215 

—  of  that  art  whose  eminent  professors  had  been 
Turenne,  Villars  and  Vauban.  And  to  match  the 
skill,  the  resource,  the  prestige  of  the  armies  of 
France,  the  New  Englanders  had  little  to  offer  but 
careful  shrewdness,  resolute  bravery  and  indomitable 
pluck.  Still  pluck,  bravery  and  even  shrewdness 
must  often  go  by  the  board  when  they  venture  to 
oppose  themselves  to  the  Art  of  War. 

So  it  seems  not  unnatural  that  some  feelings  of 
anxiety  might  have  lurked,  perhaps  all  unconsciously, 
in  the  minds  of  the  colonial  soldiery  as  they  looked 
upon  the  town.  Situated  upon  one  of  the  points 
of  land  forming  its  harbor  Louisburg  needed  no 
more  extensive  fortification  than  a  few  batteries 
and  a  musketry  curtain*  to  defend  it  on  its  north  and 
south  sides.  On  the  land  side,  to  the  southwest  the 
fortifications  were  more  elaborate.  They  had  been 
drawn  up  according  to  the  first  method  of  Vauban, 
the  great  military  engineer  of  Louis  XIV.,  and, 
though  somewhat  simpler  than  many  European 
fortresses  and  indeed  not  yet  wholly  finished,  had 
all  the  essentials,  and  were  sufficiently  formidable. 

First  was  the  turf-covered  glacis  gently  sloping 
upward  from  the  surrounding  country,  and  protect- 
ing a  covert  way  which  ran  behind  it  the  length  of 
the  line  broadening  before  the  curtains  into  places 
of  arms  for  the  gathering  of  troops  for  a  sally. 
Beyond  the  covert  way  was  the  ditch,  about  ten  feet 
deep  and  seventy  feet  across,  whence  rose  on  the 
other  side  the  granite  escarpment  above  which  was 

*  A  curtain  is  the  straight  wall  connecting  two  bastions. 


216  LOUISBURG. 

the  parapet  proper  to  the  height  generally  of  thirty 
feet.  Behind  were  mounted  the  guns,  of  which 
there  should  have  been  some  one  hundred  and  forty- 
eight  by  right,  though  only  one  half  had  been  put 
into  position. 

The  line  across  from  harbor  to  sea  had  four  bas- 
tions. Nearest  the  harbor  was  the  Dauphin's,  from 
which  extended  a  curtain  (longer  than  the  rules  pre- 
scribed by  reason  of  a  marshy  pool  or  inlet  which 
supplied  water  to  the  ditch)  running  south  to  the 
King's  Bastion.  This  last  was  called  also  the  citadel, 
and  though  not  the  largest  was  the  most  important 
of  the  four,  having  within  it  the  Governor's  apart- 
ments, the  church,  the  barracks,  and  being  fortified 
within  against  the  town  that,  all  else  being  taken, 
it  might  itself  be  held  to  the  last. 

From  the  King's  Bastion  another  curtain  extended, 
past  a  bridge  across  the  ditch  useful  for  sallies,  to 
the  Queen's,  thence  again  to  the  Princesses'  Bastion 
on  the  seashore,  the  last  of  the  four.  Such  was  the 
protection  of  the  town  upon  the  land  side.  The  walls 
were  not  high,  but  built  of  stone  and  carefully  planned, 
with  due  allowance  for  natural  inconveniences  (as 
the  pool  above  alluded  to),  according  to  regular 
fortification  as  understood  in  the  Old  World. 

On  the  other  sides,  as  already  noted,  there  was  no 
such  extensive  fortification  necessary.  Running 
north  from  the  Princesses'  Bastion  on  the  seashore 
was  a  small-arms  curtain  of  no  great  height,  the  rocky 
shore  affording  sufficient  protection,  of  six  hundred 
yards  in  length.  At  this  point  was  some  more  exten- 


LOUISBURG.  217 

sive  fortification  facing  the  burying  yard  which  ran 
out  almost  a  mile  to  Rochefort  point.  Here  the 
whole  distance  between  the  sea  and  a  great  pond  on 
the  harbor  side  was  taken  up  by  regular  fortification 
as  before,  glacis,  covert-way,  ditch  and  parapet.  At 
the  two  ends  were  the  Bastions  Brouillau  and 
Maurepas  to  the  south  and  north  respectively.  On 
the  harbor  side  of  the  town  was  less  fortification. 
From  the  Maurepas  Bastion  ran  a  bridge,  over  a 
pond,  to  the  Battery  la  Grave  which  commanded  the 
harbor.  From  the  Battery  la  Grave  to  the  Dauphin's 
Bastion  ran  what  was  called  the  key  curtain,  in  front 
of  which  were  gathered  the  French  ships  with  a 
boom  extended  around  them  for  protection. 

Such  then  was  the  circuit  of  the  town,  though 
doubtless  Pepperell  and  Gridley  could  not  acquaint 
themselves  at  once  with  all  the  above  particulars. 
It  was  thought  best  to  make  the  first  attempt  at  a 
point  about  half-way  between  the  camp  and  the 
town.  A  battery  was  therefore  erected  upon  one  of 
the  slight  elevations  called  the  Green  Hills  about  a 
mile  from  the  town  and  opposite  the  Dauphin's  and 
the  King's  Bastions.  The  equipping  of  this  first  bat- 
tery was  a  matter  of  great  difficulty.  The  New 
Englanders  had  not  many  guns,  and  the  few  that 
they  did  have  had  to  be  laboriously  hauled  over  a 
morass  on  great  sledges.  The  soldiers,  aided  by 
sailors  from  the  fleet,  toiled  unremittingly  at  this  for 
fourteen  days,  and  finally  about  the  middle  of  May 
the  battery  was  up  and  ready  to  begin.  It  does  not 
appear  that  this  first  battery  was  very  effective. 


218  LOUISE  URG. 

The  New  England  troops  were  not  well  provided 
with  artillery,  nor  had  they  been  had  they  especial 
aptitude  for  the  slow  and  scientific  approach  of  a 
fortified  place  by  means  of  parallels  and  trenches. 
Finding  the  first  battery  too  far  away  to  do  much 
damage,  they  just  went  up  nearer  and  built  another 
one  where  it  would  do  more  good.  This  second 
battery  was  on  the  shore  of  the  harbor  opposite  the 
Dauphin's  Bastion  and  about  a  thousand  yards  dis- 
tant. This  distance  was  subsequently  decreased 
about  one  half  by  the  building  of  two  other  batteries 
each  nearer  than  those  before  it. 

Meanwhile  on  the  other  side  of  the  town,  affairs 
were  advancing.  The  Grand  Battery  kept  up  a 
vigorous  cannonade  with  the  Island  Battery  and  the 
Battery  la  Grave.  The  Island  Battery  becoming 
annoying  the  New  Englanders  made  various  en- 
deavors to  capture  it,  notably  one  on  the  night  of  the 
twenty-sixth  of  May.  The  attack  was  made  by  a 
party  of  volunteers  who  approached  the  island  care- 
fully in  boats,  having  scaling  ladders  in  readiness  to 
mount  the  walls.  But  the  alarm  was  given  and  the 
boats  were  fired  upon  before  they  reached  land. 
The  assailants  in  landing  wet  their  muskets  so  that 
many  of  them  were  wrholly  useless.  The  attack 
failed  therefore,  and  the  assailants  were  driven  away 
leaving  some  sixty  of  their  number  dead  and  about 
twice  that  number  as  prisoners. 

By  the  end  of  May,  affairs  had  got  on  well.  The 
batteries  were  within  a  few  hundred  yards  of  the 
town  wall,  the  Royal  Battery  was  reinforced  by  an- 


LOUI&BURG.  219 

other,  called  Tidcome's  Battery,  nearer  the  town  and 
the  Lighthouse  Battery  was  effective.  Commodore 
Warren  held  the  sea,  so  that  no  aid  could  come  in, 
and  the  garrison  being  weak  could  make  no  sallies. 
There  had  been  certain  successes  also,  not  least  of 
which  was  the  capture  of  a  sixty-four-gun  French 
man-of-war  laden  with  stores  for  the  besieged. 

In  the  meantime,  the  garrison  had  done  almost 
nothing.  Duchambon  the  commander  was  doubtful 
of  the  trustworthiness  of  his  regulars  who  had  been 
mutinous  during  the  winter  because  they  had  been 
forced  to  work  on  the  fortifications  and  because 
their  pay  had  not  been  forthcoming.  Then  he  was 
weak  in  numbers,  having  at  best  only  eight  hundred 
French  and  a  thousand  Canadian  militia,  most  of 
whom  consisted  of  hurriedly  pressed  habitants,  with 
little  or  no  experience  or  discipline.  So  he  merely 
lay  within  his  fortifications,  hoping  devoutly  that 
some  aid  would  turn  up,  and  satisfying  himself  with 
repelling  such  attacks  as  might  be  made. 

Still,  by  the  middle  of  June  it  became  apparent 
to  Pepperell  that  the  siege  might  drag  on  and  orr 
unless  vigorous  measures  were  taken.  The  Light- 
house battery  though  useful  in  its  work,  did  not 
succeed  in  silencing  the  battery  on  the  island.  The 
Royal  battery  was  not  of  very  great  service  because 
the  cannons  taken  from  the  French  could  not  be 
used  with  the  shot  that  the  Provincials  happened  to 
have.  Tidcome's  battery  and  the  other  batteries 
near  the  harbor  were  doing  good  service  against  the 
Dauphin's  Bastion  which  defended  the  west  gate. 


220  LOUISBURG. 

The  commodore  did  not  feel  wholly  comfortable 
at  sea.  He  was  running  short  of  provisions  ;  he 
feared  the  arrival  of  a  superior  French  force.  He 
continually  urged  Pepperell  to  an  assault. 

In  some  ways  things  on  shore  were  not  going  to 
suit  the  general's  mind.  There  was  a  great  lack  of 
powder.  There  was  a  good  deal  of  illness  in  the 
camp,  over  a  thousand  men  being  on  the  sick  list. 
And  although  the  first  efforts  had  been  successful, 
nothing  had  been  done  on  shore  of  late  and  the 
siege  was  hardly  more  advanced  than  it  had  been  a 
month  before.  Under  these  circumstances  Pepperell, 
after  consulting  with  Commodore  Warren  yielded  to 
the  commodore's  desire  to  attempt  the  place  by 
storm.  It  was  arranged  that  the  ships  should  sail 
by  the  Island  battery  into  the  harbor  and  bombard 
the  town  while  the  land  forces  should  make  the 
assault  on  the  Dauphin's  Bastion  which  was  the 
most  depleted  of  the  four. 

While  these  negotiations,  however,  were  in  prog- 
ress the  French  commander  rendered  them  unnec- 
essary. On  the  sixteenth  of  June  after  a  siege  of 
forty-eight  days  the  town  surrendered.  Ducham- 
bon  who  was  not  an  officer  of  the  highest  military 
skill  and  ability  was  frightened  out  of  his  position. 
Having  been  at  the  very  first  caught  with  his  fortifi- 
cations incomplete,  with  his  guns  only  half-mounted, 
with  a  very  small  garrison,  and  even  such  garrison 
as  there  was  in  a  semi-mutinous  condition,  he  had 
at  no  time  felt  very  resolute.  The  absolute  block- 
ade kept  up  by  Warren's  fleet,  the  capture  of  pro- 


LOUISBURG.  221 

jected  aid,  the  gradual  advance  of  the  provincial 
batteries  and  the  imminence  of  an  assault  by  a 
superior  force  had  a  very  discouraging  effect 
upon  his  powers  of  endurance.  On  the  seventeenth 
of  June,  Pepperell  marched  into  the  town  and  took 
possession  of  it  for  the  Crown  of  England.  The 
French  prisoners  were  paroled  and  sent  back  to 
France.  A  considerable  quantity  of  military  stores 
fell  into  the  hands  of  the  victors. 

Such  was  the  New  England  victory  at  Louisburg. 
The  bastions  and  ditches  and  parapets  planned  and 
executed  according  to  the  scientific  rules  of  the  art 
of  war  had  fallen  before  the  "  simple  militia 
hurriedly  gathered  together,  and  commanded  by 
merchants  who  had  no  knowledge  of  military 
affairs."  It  is  true  that  there  had  been  many  cir- 
cumstances aiding  the  event,  but  be  all  that  as  it  may 
the  New  Englanders  had  triumphed  over  such  ob- 
stacles as  these  had  been  and  had  taken  the  place. 
We  cannot  say  whether  they  would  have  been  as  suc- 
cessful had  circumstances  been  different.  Taking 
things  as  they  had  found  them,  they  had  gone  to 
work  and  captured  the  town.  They  deserve  the 
credit  which  belongs  to  success. 

That  credit  they  received  in  a  large  measure. 
Shirley,  the  originator,  and  Pepperell,  the  executor 
of  the  scheme,  were  both  made  colonels  in  the  Eng- 
lish Army.  Sir  Peter  Warren  was  made  an  admiral. 
Pepperell  was  made  Sir  William  Pepperell  instead  of 
plain  Mr.  William.  The  rejoicing  throughout  New 
England  was  great.  It  was  felt  that  this  was  an  un- 


222  LOUISBURG. 

precedented  success.  Even  the  stern  Puritan  inexo- 
rable in  thanking  God  for  the  uttermost  farthing, 
allowed  in  this  case  that  there  were  so  many  things 
to  be  grateful  for  that  time  must  be  infinitely  too 
short  for  the  expression  of  them. 

While  the  English  Colonies  were  raised  to  such  a 
pitch  of  jubilation  at  their  achievement,  the  Cana- 
dians and  the  French  were  aroused  to  the  serious 
nature  of  their  loss.  At  Quebec  it  was  believed 
that  the  capture  of  Louisburg  was  only  the  fore- 
runner of  an  expedition  against  the  capital  itself. 
The  authorities  at  home  were  stirred  up  and  ener- 
getic, though  secret  preparations  were  set  on  foot 
for  an  expedition  the  next  summer  which  should 
not  only  retrieve  the  loss  of  Louisburg,  but  inflict 
corresponding  damage  upon  the  English  in  the  New 
World.  A  great  fleet  and  armament  we're  at  once 
gathered.  The  first  object  was  the  recapture  of 
Louisburg  ;  the  reduction  of  Acadie  came  next  and, 
as  a  fitting  end,  Boston  itself  was  to  be  taken  and 
burned,  and  the  New  England  coast  ravaged.  The 
force  prepared  was  not  inadequate  to  the  undertak- 
ing. Admiral  D'Anville  had  under  his  command 
eleven  ships  of  the  line  and  a  fleet  of  transports 
bearing  an  army  of  three  thousand  men.  Twelve 
hundred  Canadians  and  Indians  were  arming  at 
Quebec  to  assist  in  the  expedition. 

Such  an  expedition  would  be  far  superior  to  any 
force  the  English  colonists  could  have  sent  to  Louis- 
burg or  Annapolis.  It  presented  the  gravest  terrors 
even  for  the  safety  of  Boston.  All  New  England 


LOUISBURG.  223 

was  alarmed,  and  Boston  Common  became  a  camp 
for  thousands  of  men,  some  of  whom  had  come  post- 
ing down,  seventy  miles  in  two  days,  with  provisions 
for  a  whole  campaign  on  their  backs.  But  Shirley 
was  not  daunted  by  this  intimation  of  future  ruin. 
The  English  fleet  was  still  at  Louisburg.  He  hoped 
for  reinforcements  from  England.  And  so,  not 
frightened  into  spending  all  his  thoughts  on  how  to 
defend  himself  at  home,  he  went  vigorously  to  work 
to  prepare  a  counter  expedition  against  Quebec. 
But  with  others  in  the  New  England  provinces,  the 
gravest  apprehension  prevailed. 

Such  apprehensions,  though  by  no  means  un- 
founded, fortunately  turned  out  to  be  futile.  If  the 
capture  of  Louisburg  was  the  result  of  a  special 
providence,  in  this  new  danger  the  hand  of  God 
might  be  much  more  clearly  seen.  The  New  Eng- 
landers  never  had  to  battle  against  D'Anville.  A 
terrible  storm  separated  the  fleet  while  still  on  the 
ocean,  and  a  part  of  the  ships  were  sent  to  the 
bottom.  Of  the  rest,  some  were  forced  to  return  to 
France,  some  found  their  way  to  the  West  Indies, 
while  a  miserable  fragment  gathered  under  D'Anville 
on  the  shores  of  Nova  Scotia.  Even  such  as  reached 
America  were  by  no  means  fit  to  undertake  any 
warlike  demonstrations,  for  the  voyage  had  been 
long  and  painful  and  sickness,  more  terrible  even 
than  the  storm,  had  broken  out  in  the  crowded 
transports. 

The  soldiers  when  once  on  shore  died  by  the  hun- 
dred in  the  hastily  constructed  shelters  put  up  on 


224  LOUISBURG. 

the  lonely  shores  of  Nova  Scotia.  D'Anville  himself 
died  suddenly  and  D'Estournelle,  second  in  command, 
fell  ill,  became  delirious,  and  fell  upon  his  own  sword. 
In  spite  of  these  distressing  events  the  remnant  of  the 
armament  under  La  Jonquiere  set  sail  for  Annapolis. 
But  in  doubling  Cape  Sable  even  this  squadron  was 
struck  by  a  gale,  and  to  save  themselves  the  ships 
put  to  sea  and  ultimately  returned  to  France.  They 
had  never  got  within  gunshot  of  an  English  town. 
All  New  England  saw  here  the  protecting  hand  of 
God  made  manifest. 

Nothing  more  of  import  was  done  during  the  war. 
The  French,  undiscouraged  by  the  failure  of  D'An- 
ville, dispatched  another  armament  which  was  met 
and  destroyed  off  Finisterre  by  Admirals  Warren  and 
Anson.  As  an  offset  to  this  they  obtained  some  ad- 
vantage in  Acadie,  although  failing  to  capture  An- 
napolis. Shirley's  expedition  against  Canada  came 
to  nothing,  no  aids  being  sent  from  England.  And 
in  1748  came  news  that  peace  had  been  signed  at 
Aix-la-Chapelle.  The  peace  restored  the  status  quo 
ante  as  far  as  America  was  concerned.  Louisburg 
and  Cape  Breton  were  restored  to  France  in  ex- 
change for  Madras  which  had  been  captured  by  La 
Bourdonnais. 

New  England  was  disgusted  and  hardly  appeased 
by  a  parliamentary  grant  of  about  two  hundred 
thousand  pounds  sterling  to  help  defray  the  ex- 
penses of  the  expedition.  The  benefit  which  came 
to  New  England  from  thus  uniting  in  arms  for  a 
common  object  was  not  to  be  measured  by  money, 


LOUISBURG.  225 

nor  was  it,  to  tell  the  truth,  of  a  nature  which 
England  would  have  been  likely  to  approve,  had  it 
presented  itself  to  open  view. 

The  leaders  of  Massachusetts  had  been  distressed 
beyond  measure  at  the  loss  of  the  rights  under  their 
first  charter.  They  had  been  virtually  independent 
under  it.  They  thought  they  had  lost  their  inde- 
pendence. They  sent  mission  after  mission  to  Eng- 
land, to  plead  and  negotiate.  But  all  would  not  do. 
And  William  III.,  whom  they  all  believed  in,  — 
whose  assumption  of  the  crown  was  a  sign  that 
Oliver  Cromwell  and  the  men  of  his  kind  had  not 
lived  or  died  in  vain,  —  William  III.,  who  restored  the 
liberties  of  England,  was  the  man  who  imposed  on 
Massachusetts  the  new  charter.  The  men  of  that 
time  regarded  it  as  an  act  of  tyranny. 

But  in  truth  they  lived  under  the  new  charter 
precisely  as  they  lived  under  the  old.  True,  they 
did  not  elect  their  governor.  But,  as  they  did  not 
propose  to  give  the  governor  any  power  to  speak  of, 
this  made  very  little  difference  to  them.  In  many 
instances  the  Crown  appointed  the  very  men  whom 
the  State  would  have  chosen.  It  was  rather  a  matter 
of  convenience  that  the  "  Old  Colony  "  was  annexed 
to  the  "  Bay  Colony."  To  the  people  of  Plymouth, 
however,  there  was  an  additional  grief  in  their  loss  of 
separate  sovereignty.  It  is  to  be  observed,  however, 
that  they  have  never  lost  their  pride  in  their  tradi- 
tions, nor  a  noble  sort  of  indifference  to  the  criticisms 
of  the  rest  of  the  world.  Every  visitor  in  the  town 
of  Plymouth,  to-day,  is  conscious  that  he  is  in  a  capital. 


226  LOUISBURG. 

The  governors  appointed  under  the  charter  of 
William  and  Mary  were  William  Phipps,  from  1692 
to  1695 ;  Richard  Coote,  Earl  of  Bellomont,  from 
1697  to  1707;  Joseph  Dudley,  from  1702  to  1715; 
Samuel  Shute  from  1716  to  1727  ;  William  Burnet 
from  1728  to  1729  ;  Jonathan  Belcher,  from  1730  to 
1741;  William  Shirley,  from  1741  to  1757;  Thomas 
Pownall,  from  1757  to  1760;  Francis  Bernard  from 
1760  to  1769;  Thomas  Hutchinson  from  1769  to 
1774 ;  Thomas  Gage  from  1774  to  October,  1775. 

Of  these,  Phipps,  Dudley  and  Hutchinson  were 
Massachusetts  men  ;  of  a  position  and  ability  such 
that  the  State  or  "  province  "  might  well  have 
chosen  them  to  be  governors  had  it  the  right  to  do 
so.  Shirley,  whose  reign  was  longest,  proved  him- 
self a  man  of  remarkable  ability.  He  wras  not  a 
native  of  Massachusetts,  but  an  Englishman.  He 
had,  however,  come  over  to  Boston  to  practice  law, 
and  had  acquired,  as  he  had  deserved,  the  public 
confidence.  It  was  as  a  Massachusetts  man  that  he 
was  appointed  governor.  It  is  a  misfortune  that 
no  biography  of  him  was  written  when  his  papers 
were  still  together.  He  was  generally  a  favorite 
in  Massachusetts.  He  was  promoted  from  his  place 
here  to  what  was  thought  a  higher  appointment, 
and  he  returned  to  Massachusetts  to  spend  the  last 
years  of  his  life  in  his  elegant  home  in  Roxbury. 
Massachusetts  had  no  native-citizen  who  could  have 
done  what  Shirley  did  so  well.  And  Massachusetts 
was  never  slow  to  follow  Shirley's  lead.  She  gave 
him  the  support  which  gave  him  his  reputation. 


LOUISBURG.  227 

These  three  administrations  cover  thirty-one  years 
of  the  eighty-two  of  the  royal  charter.  For  three 
more  the  governor's  chair  was  held  by  "  deputies  " 
who  were  Massachusetts  men  ;  they  served  in  the 
"interim"  -between  one  royal  governor  and  an- 
other. Of  the  other  governors  it  may  be  said  that 
none  were  fools. 

Bellomont  made  himself,  in  a  certain  sense,  popu- 
lar. The  grandsons  of  the  first  settlers  were  really 
gratified  to  see  a  live  earl,  though  he  were  only 
an  Irish  earl.  Burnet  did  not  live  long  enough  to 
give  offense,  and  he  did  show  intelligence,  an  ele- 
gant home,  and  a  certain  taste  for  letters.  He 
made  his  home  in  New  York  more  than  in  Massa- 
chusetts.* The  Earl  of  Bellomont  was  the  brother 
of  Bishop  Burnet,  and  appointed,  perhaps,  from 
deference  to  his  wishes. 

Francis  Bernard  was  governor  of  New  Jersey 
when  he  was  appointed  to  the  government  of  Mas- 
sachusetts. This  was,  in  some  sort,  promotion,  and 
Bernard  came  to  Massachusetts  to  live.  Of  Shute 
and  Belcher  little  need  be  said.  They  were  in  no 
way  men  of  importance,  and  cannot  be  said  to  have 
directed  any  policy.  Of  the  whole  series  of  English 
governors,  Pownall  was  the  most  intelligent,  and  his 
papers  addressed  to  the  administration  in  the  time 
of  the  Revolution,  if  there  had  been  anybody  who 
cared  to  read  them,  made  a  body  of  excellent  advice. 
It  was  the  fashion  of  Minot  and  Hutchinson,  in  an 

*  There  is  a  well  conceived  dialogue,  quite  fictitious,  describing  his  interview  with 
the  boy,  Benjamin  Franklin.  The  interview  took  place  —  see  Franklin's  Autobiography 
—  but  this  narrative  Is  the  work  of  some  modern  writer. 


228  LOUISBURG. 

amusing  desire  to  make  the  history  of  the  little  com- 
monwealth parallel  with  that  of  the  larger  countries 
of  Europe,  to  group  the  events  in  that  history  under 
the  names  of  these  several  governors.  But,  in  point 
of  fact,  the  governor  of  Massachusetts,  from  1630  to 
the  moment  when  I  write,  has  had  very  little  power. 
The  governor  is  now  rather  a  clerk  of  the  council, 
in  theory,  than  the  director  of  the  forces  of  a  great 
State.  A  wise  and  intelligent  man  will  indicate  a 
line  of  policy  which  will  be  carried  out  by  a  wise 
and  intelligent  legislature.  But  really  the  "  General 
Court"  of  Massachusetts  is  the  ruler  of  Massachu- 
setts, and  while  the  governor  of  Massachusetts  from 
the  beginning  has  been  able  to  annoy  the  Gen- 
eral Court  of  his  time  a  good  deal,  it  is  not  often 
that  he  has  exercised  any  of  the  attributes  which 
belong  to  our  ideas  of  a  Cromwell,  a  Napoleon,  or 
a  Henry  IV.  * 

The  People  of  Massachusetts  has  always  been  the 
power  which  has  governed  Massachusetts.  The  his- 
tory of  Massachusetts  is  a  history  of  steadily  ad- 
vancing prosperity,  of  increasing  wealth,  and  of  the 
power  which  belongs  to  wealth.  The  advance  has 
been  hindered  by  war,  by  pestilence,  by  savage  in- 
vasions, and  sometimes  by  bad  legislation ;  but  the 
men  called  the  governors  of  Massachusetts  have  had 
singularly  little  to  do  with  that  history.  If  it  were 
the  place  of  this  book  to  discuss  that  matter,  a 

*  Governor  Andrew,  the  great  war  governor,  will  be  remembered  as  in  some  sort  an 
exception  to  what  has  been  said.  But  it  was  an  open  secret  at  the  time,  that  his  power 
was  rather  that  of  a  strong  sensible  man  —  who  would  have  been  a  leader  of  Massachu- 
setts in  such  an  exigency,  though  he  were  in  what  is  called  private  life  —  rather  than 
power  derived  from  the  constitution  or  statutes. 


LOUISBURG.  229 

similar  statement  might  be  made  as  to  the  fortunes 
of  the  United  States  of  America,  and  the  place  which 
the  presidents  of  that  nation  occupy  in  its  history. 
In  the  case  of  Massachusetts,  from  the  time  of 
Phipps  to  the  time  of  Hutchinson,  there  is  one  un- 
broken series  of  annals,  in  which  the  governor  of 
the  time  asked  the  assembly  of  the  time  to  give  him 
a  permanent  pecuniary  support,  and  the  assembly  of 
the  time  as  regularly  refused  to  do  so.  It  became  a 
point  of  honor  with  them  to  vote  simply  a  salary  for 
the  year,  which  was  regularly  paid  ;  but  they  never 
meant  to  leave  the  purse-strings  in  any  hands  but 
their  own,  and  never  did  leave  them  so.  At  the 
time  of  these  conflicts  they  always  assumed  a  good 
deal  of  importance,  and  it  is  quite  possible  to  take 
the  history  of  any  single  year,  and  to  make  quite  a 
dramatic  account  of  the  battle  between  the  leaders 
of  the  people  and  the  representative  of  the  Crown. 

But  there  was  always  a  foregone  conclusion  — 
this  hated  thing,  a  permanent  establishment  for  the 
governor,  was  never  to  be  made  real.  The  provision 
made  for  the  governor  was,  in  fact,  so  small  — never 
amounting  to  more  than  a  thousand  pounds  in  the 
colonial  currency  —  that  it  is  really  amusing  that  it 
should  have  been  made  a  point  of  battle  for  three 
quarters  of  a  century.  Had  the  royal  authorities 
forecast  the  future  with  any  intelligence,  they  would 
have  paid  the  royal  governor  from  the  royal  ex- 
chequer ;  they  would  then  have  had  an  officer  de- 
pendent upon  themselves,  who  could  have  defied 
colonial  legislatures.  But  when  their  representative 


230  LOUISBURG. 

in  Massachusetts  was  a  Bellomont  or  a  Shute  or  a- 
Belcher,  who  had  his  grocer's  bills  to  pay  every  year 
from  the  money  which  the  legislature  of  the  colony 
chose  to  vote  him,  the  Crown  had  not  a  very  efficient 
advocate  in  that  assembly,  or  a  very  strong  ruler. 
And  really  this  is  all  that  the  intelligent  young 
reader  of  to-day  need  trouble  himself  to  remember 
about  the  political  history  of  Massachusetts.  Macau- 
lay  used  to  know  his  archbishops  of  Canterbury  by 
heart ;  but  no  one  need  take  the  trouble  to  learn  the 
list  of  the  governors  which  I  have  written  out.  It 
is  enough  to  know  that  the  people  of  Massachusetts 
governed  themselves,  that  they  did  as  they  chose, 
that  they  advanced  in  prosperity,  and  that  nothing 
which  was  done  or  suggested  by  the  Crown  had 
any  effect  on  that  prosperity,  unless  it  were  the 
blunders  initiated  by  the  Crown  in  the  conduct  of 
their  wars.  In  the  matter  of  war,  they  went  far  in 
advance  of  the  policy  of  the  English  cabinet ;  they 
were  always  planning  expeditions  which  were  very 
formidable  on  paper,  and  they  were  taxing  them- 
selves, as  perhaps  no  part  of  the  British  Empire  was 
taxed  at  the  same  period,  for  the  cost  of  those  ex- 
peditions in  men,  in  ships  and  in  money. 

Of  such  expeditions  the  reader  has  seen  the  his- 
tory of  the  most  important.  They  culminated  in 
the  fall  of  Quebec  and  the  surrender  of  Canada  to 
the  English  crown.  It  is  interesting  to  see  now  that 
intelligent  men  in  all  parts  of  the  world  foresaw 
that,  as  the  French  thunder-cloud  on  the  north  was 
to  be  feared  no  longer,  the  independence  of  America 


LOUISBURG.  231 

was  likely  to  be  the  next  step  in  history.  But  it 
goes  almost  without  saying,  that  the  coterie  of  dull 
people  around  George  III.  —  who  was  himself,  if  that 
be  possible,  duller  than  any  of  them  —  were  the  last 
persons  who  made  this  observation.  It  is  certain., 
on  the  other  hand,  that  it  was  made  by  intelligent 
Frenchmen  and  Germans,  and  that  it  was  made  in 
Massachusetts,  as  well  as  in  other  parts  of  the 
civilized  world.  There  is  a  curious  remark  of  Wash- 
ington's, in  one  of  his  letters  to  his  London  corre- 
spondents, in  which  he  seems  to  foresee  absolute 
dullness  or  nothingness  in  the  political  world  to 
which  he  was  born,  and  where  he  was  to  be  the  most 
important  man  : 

To  RICHAKD  WASHINGTON,  July  14,  1761 : 

"  The  entire  conquest  of  Canada  and  of  the  French  in  most  parts  of 
North  America  being  a  story  too  stale  to  relate  in  these  days,  we  are 
often  at  a  loss  for  something  with  which  to  fill  our  letters." 

To  RICHARD  WASHINGTON,  Oct.  20,  17G1 : 

"  I  do  not  know  that  I  can  muster  up  one  tittle  of  news.  In  short, 
as  we  live  in  a  state  of  peaceful  tranquillity  ourselves,  so  we  are  at 
very  little  trouble  to  inquire  after  the  operations  against  the  Cherokecs." 

This  tranquillity  was  broken  when,  on  the  twen- 
tieth of  September,  he  writes  to  Mrs.  Washington's 
uncle  in  London  : 

"  At  present  there  are  few  things  among  us  that  can  be  of  interest 
to  you.  The  Stamp  Act  imposed  upon  the  Colonies  by  the  Parliament 
of  Great  Britain,  engrosses  the  conversation  of  the  speculative  part  of 
the  colonists,  who  look  upon  this  unconstitutional  method  of  taxation 
as  a  direful  attack  upon  their  liberties,  and  loudly  exclaim  against  the 
violation." 


232  LOUISBURG. 

And  that  is  a  very  curious  view  in  history  which 
inquires  to  what  the  American  colonies  would 
have  grown,  if  the  ministry  of  the  young  king  of 
England  had  not  been  as  absolutely  stupid  as  they 
were  in  fact.  George  III.  had  come  to  the  throne, 
the  grandson  of  an  old  king,  with  that  sort  of  en- 
thusiasm about  governing  which  young  kings  are 
apt  to  have.  Writing  in  the  year  1891,  one  may 
say  he  was  the  Emperor  William  of  his  time.  I 
have  been  fond  of  saying  that  he  was  "  a  Brumma- 
gem Louis  XIV."  In  his  first  speech  to  Parliament 
he  boasted  that  he  wras  born  in  England  —  as  un- 
fortunately, none  of  his  predecessors  had  been  since 
James  II.  He  was  unquestionably  a  great  favorite 
at  the  time  he  came  to  the  throne  ;  nations  which 
have  kings  always  like  to  have  them  young  till  they 
have  tried  them.  It  was  in  the  year  1761  that  he 
was  crowned.  Quebec  had  fallen,  and  the  treaty  of 
peace  which  was  soon  to  follow,  recognized  England 
as  the  first  military  and  naval  power  in  the  world. 
Prance  was  more  thoroughly  humbled  than  she  had 
been  since  the  days  of  the  Edwards.  The  king  had, 
or  seemed  to  have,  the  Parliament  or  government  of 
the  nation  in  his  pocket.  He  wanted  to  do  great 
things,  and  why  should  he  not  want  to,  and  why 
should  he  not  do  them  ?  All  this  blinded  the  eyes 
of  the  men  who  made  up  his  cabinet.  It  is  idle  to 
use  the  distinctions  between  :'  Whig  "  and  "  Tory  " 
in  speaking  of  them  ;  they  were  the  "  king's  friends," 
and  as  the  king's  friends  were  spoken  of  in  history. 
Our  own  countryman,  Benjamin  West,  is  the  author- 


LOUISBURG.  233 

ity  for  saying  that  this  young  Louis  XIV.  thought  lie 
would  like  to  have  a  Versailles  of  his  own.  If  he 
were  to  have  a  Versailles,  he  must  have  money  ;  if 
there  were  to  be  money  it  must  be  raised  somewhere 
where  money  had  not  been  raised  before ;  and,  ac- 
cording to  this  anecdote  of  West's,  it  was  this  desire 
for  more  show  in  administration  which  suggested  to 
Grenville,  who  was  the  king's  adviser  in  such  mat- 
ters, the  famous  stamp  duty,  from  which  followed, 
as  it  proved,  the  independence  of  America. 

The  Stamp  Act  was  first  proposed  as  early  as 
1763.  In  1764,  Grenville  was  prime  minister,  and 
in  his  amendment  to  the  Sugar  Act,  he  introduced  a 
resolution  in  these  fatal  words :  "  It  may  be  proper 
to  charge  stamp  duties  in  the  colonies  and  planta- 
tions." This  resolution  challenged  little  attention 
in  Parliament,  but  the  agents  of  the  colonies  resident 
in  London  at  once  called  the  attention  of  the  colo- 
nial governments  to  the  proposal.  They  waited  on 
Grenville  to  say  that  this  was  a  scheme  for  internal 
taxation,  and  that  it  would  be  intolerable  in  America. 
Grenville  said  in  reply  that  he  had  introduced  it  in 
this  way  on  purpose  that  the  colonial  assemblies 
might  suggest  any  other  method  more  agreeable  to 
them  for  raising  such  revenue.  He  seems,  therefore, 
to  have  understood  that  he  was  treading  on  delicate 
ground. 

From  the  beginning  the  colonies  had  recognized  a 
certain  right  of  the  home  government  to  establish 
import  duties  at  their  ports.  The  recognition  was 
accompanied  by  a  very  steadfast  countenancing  of 


234  LOUISJ3UMG. 

smuggling  in  various  forms,  and  by  a  determination 
to  evade  the  English  Navigation  Act,  wherever  it 
pressed  heavily  upon  their  commercial  interests. 
This  evasion,  indeed,  was  not  much  frowned  at  by 
the  home  government.  It  was  so  clear  that  the  col- 
onies understood  the  course  of  their  own  commerce 
better  than  England  could  do,  that  many  very  con- 
siderable deviations  from  the  Navigation  Act  had  be- 
come countenanced  by  custom  and,  indeed,  established 
by  special  statute. 

But,  with  Grenville's  new  plans,  he  fancied  that 
he  could  extend  the  range  of  the  duties  on  imports, 
and,  as  a  feeler,  he  threw  in  the  internal  duty  on 
stamps  in  his  hope  of  obtaining  some  revenue  from 
the  colonies.  If  he  had  read  any  of  the  dispatches 
of  the  last  seventy  years,  he  must  have  known  that 
the  legislative  assemblies  had  always  refused  the 
slightest  proposal  of  their  governors  to  raise  any 
revenue  which  they  themselves  had  not  voted.  Only 
in  the  year  before  he  introduced  the  Stamp  Act,  the 
House  of  Representatives  in  Massachusetts  had  said, 
"  It  would  be  of  little  consequence  to  this  people 
whether  they  were  subject  to  George  or  to  Louis,  the 
King  of  Great  Britain  or  the  King  of  France,  if  both 
were  as  arbitrary  as  both  would  be  if  both  could  levy 
taxes  without  Parliament." 

It  need  not  be  said,  therefore,  that  no  colonial 
assembly  accepted  Grenville's  suggestion  of  providing 
other  sources  of  revenue.  On  his  part  he  was  as 
good  as  his  word ;  he  had  given  his  year's  notice  to 
the  colonies  and  they  had  done  nothing.  He  there- 


LOUISBUEG.  235 

fore  introduced  the  Stamp  Act,  which  was  passed  by 
an  enormous  majority  in  a  full  House  of  Commons 
on  the  twenty-second  of  March,  1765.  The  cheapest 
stamp  was  to  be  one  shilling ;  for  more  important 
documents  the  prices  ranged  upward.  This  act  was 
to  be  enforced  after  the  first  Tuesday  in  October. 

The  matter  does  not  seem  to  have  attracted  much 
attention  in  England.  The  memoirs  and  the  jour- 
nals of  the  day  are  full  of  other  matters  which  have 
proved  of  no  consequence  in  comparison.  But  the 
whole  of  America  was  thrown  into  a  fever.  In 
Massachusetts  the  indignation  expressed  itself  in 
every  form  of  popular  excitement.  The  gentlemen 
who  were  appointed  to  sell  the  stamps  were  told 
that  they  must  resign,  and  generally  they  did  resign. 
In  Boston,  Oliver  at  first  refused  to  resign  ;  the  mob 
entered  his  house  and  broke  his  windows.  Thomns 
Hutchinson,  soon  afterward  to  be  the  governor,  was 
unfortunately  Oliver's  brother-in-law.  Hutchinson, 
who  was  a  man  of  wealth,  of  position  and  of  ability, 
was  trying  very  hard  to  be  on  both  sides  —  on  the 
king's  side  and  on  that  of  the  people.  The  people 
were  all  the  more  indignant  with  him  ;  they  attacked 
his  house  also,  left  it  ravaged  and  empty. 

This  is  one  of  the  worst  disgraces  of  the  town  of 
Boston.  He  says  himself  that  valuable  documents 
were  lost  in  that  mob  which  were  never  recovered. 
It  is  curious  enough  that  the  rioting  began  on  the 
birthday  of  the  Prince  of  Wales  ;  it  is  perhaps  the 
first  and  the  last  time  that  poor  George  IV.  ever  had 
much  influence  in  Boston,  but  that  day  was  still  kept 


236  LOVISBURQ. 

as  a  holiday.  He  was  three  years  old  this  day. 
Crowds  assembled  in  the  streets,  shouting  "'Pitt  and 
Liberty !  "  This  was  in  gratitude  for  the  change  of 
ministry,  in  which  Pitt  had  come  back  to  office. 

It  was  then  proposed  that  Andrew  Oliver,  the 
stamp  officer,  should  be  hung  in  effigy,  and  two  days 
afterwards  on  the  Liberty  Tree  were  seen  hanging  a 
stuffed  figure  labelled  with  Oliver's  name,  and  a  large 
boot  with  a  head  and  horns  upon  it  which  repre- 
sented Lord  Bute.  This  was  the  standing  joke  of 
both  countries,  Bute  being  supposed  to  be  the  head 
of  the  court  party,  which  had  been  turned  out  at  this 
moment  by  Pitt's  return  to  the  ministry.  These 
effigies  were  hung  by  a  club  called  the  "Sons  of 
Liberty."  Hutchinson  ordered  the  sheriff  to  remove 
them,  but  nothing  was  done  till  evening,  whe/n  the 
Sons  of  Liberty  took  them  down,  and  in  a  great  pro- 
cession carried  them  into  the  old  State  House,  to  the 
open  hall  under  the  council  chamber  where  Bernard 
the  governor,  Hutchinson  and  other  advisers  had 
met.  The  crowd  shouted  "  Liberty,  property  and 
no  stamps  !" 

Then  the  mob,  for  it  became  such,  moved  to  Kilby 
Street,  where  they  destroyed  the  frame  of  the  build- 
ing which  Oliver  was  putting  up  for  his  office.  With 
a  part  of  this  frame  and  with  the  effigies  they  went 
to  Oliver's  house  and  burned  the  effigies  in  a  bonfire. 
Bernard  and  Hutchinson  were  both  frightened  and 
took  refuge  in  the  castle.  A  few  days  after  this  in- 
sult to  Oliver,  a  second  mob  gathered  near  the  old 
State  House  and  after  some  lesser  outrages,  went  to 


LOUISBURG.  237 

the  elegant  house  of  Hutchinson  in  Garden  Court 
Street  and  sacked  it. 

In  their  first  outrages  they  had  "  made  free  use 
of  the  contents  of  the  cellars."  They  burst  open 
the  doors  and  the  windows,  and  carried  away  every 
thing  in  the  house  ;  nothing  remained  but  the  brick 
walls.  Hutchinson  had  resolved  to  remain,  but  one 
of  his  daughters  begged  him  to  leave  the  house,  and 
he  did  so  just  before  the  mob  arrived. 

At  a  town  meeting  the  next  morning  the  town 
unanimously  condemned  these  outrages  and  some 
arrests  were  made,  but  there  was  never  any  trial  of 
the  ringleaders.  The  General  Court  afterward  reim- 
bursed Hutchinson,  as  far  as  money  could  do  so,  for 
the  losses  which  he  had  sustained. 

Andrew  Oliver  at  once  sent  in  his  resignation  and 
declined  to  receive  the  stamps.  They  were  stored  in 
the  castle  on  their  arrival.  An  extra  session  of  the 
General  Court  was  held  in  September,  and  in  Octo- 
ber the  first  congress  of  the  Anglo-American  colonies 
called  together  by  the  general  indignation  at  the 
Stamp  Act,  met  in  New  York. 


CHAPTER   XV. 

THE    BOSTON    MASSACRE. 

Ij^ROM  this  time  until  the  nineteenth  of  April,  1775, 
J-  a  period  of  nearly  ten  years,  Massachusetts  was 
alive  with  the  hopes  and  fears  which  led  to  war  and 
the  American  Revolution.  It  is  probable  that,  at  the 
town-meetings  in  Boston  which  expressed  the  unan- 
imous sentiment  o*f  respectable  people  regarding 
the  mob,  there  was  not  a  single  person  who  even 
dreamed  of  the  change  which  was  to  come.  But 
when  we  say,  as  James  Otis  is  made  to  say  in  an 
imagined  speech,*  that  in  the  beginning  the  colonists 
did  not  think  of  independence,  we  must  remember 
that  they  did  think  of  maintaining  the  condition  of 
things  which  existed,  and  this  condition  was  virtu- 
ally independence.  Massachusetts  had  really  been 
independent  of  the  Crown  for  a  hundred  and 
thirty-five  years,  and  no  man  in  Massachusetts,  ex- 
cepting a  few  connected  by  their  places  or  by  birth 
with  England,  had  any  idea  of  surrendering  that 
position.  The  word  "  independence,"  then,  if  used 
at  all,  must  be  used  with  the  recollection  that  it  has 
two  meanings  in  this  matter.  It  is  undoubtedly 

*This  speech   is   in  Miss  Francis's  admirable  novel,   The  Rebels.     Miss  Francis 
was  afterward  Mrs.  L.   M.   Child.    Very  unfortunately,  but  few  of  the  speeches  of  pa- 
triots or  tories  before  the  Revolution  were  reported.     Molyneux,  who  "  died  before  the 
sight,"  was  an  orator  of  great  reputation.    But  I  think  that  no  speech  of  his  is  preserved. 
238 


T11E  BOSTON  MASS  ACHE.  239 

true  that  the  people  of  Massachusetts  in  1765  had 
no  thought  of  throwing  off  the  nominal  connection 
which  bound  them  to  the  crown  of  England  ;  it  is, 
on  the  other  hand,  true  that  their  leaders  meant,  as 
they  had  meant  from  the  beginning,  to  preserve  a 
substantial  independence  of  their  own.  It  is  worth 
noting  in  this  connection  that  the  word  "  independ- 
ence "  was  at  that  time  a  new  word.  It  is  a  word 
which  does  not  appear  in  Shakespeare  ;  it  came  into 
existence  as  a  theological  term  to  represent  the  posi- 
tion of  the  Browriists  arid  other  extreme  Puritans, 
and  it  is  only  in  the  eighteenth  century  that  it  be- 
gins to  appear  in  any  broader  connection  in  English 
literature.  An  interesting  anecdote  shows  that 
when  Nathan  Hale,  in  1775,  spoke  of  "independ- 
ence "  at  a  town  meeting  in  New  London,  a  boy  in 
the  audience  had  never  heard  the  word,  and  had  to 
ask  his  father  what  was  its  meaning. 

For  Massachusetts,  these  ten  years  involved  many 
crises  of  intense  excitement.  Under  llie  practical 
constitution  of  Massachusetts,  each  town  was  virtu- 
ally an  independent  power,  and  there  are  many 
records  which  show  how  separate  towns  of  Massa- 
chusetts defied  George  III.,  and  made  preparations 
to  fight  him.  Separate  towns  bought  powder  for 
their  magazines,  and  in  other  ways  prepared  for  the 
struggles  which  were  before  them.  The  history  of  a 
thousand  separate  movements,  all  looking  towards 
the  preservation  of  the  independence  which  they 
had  always  enjoyed,  makes  a  romance  of  those  ten 
years,  of  which  the  two  most  dramatic  passages  are 


240  THE  BOSTON  MASSACRE. 

the  Boston  Massacre,  which  took  place  March  5, 
1770,  and  the  Boston  Tea-party,  December  13,  1773. 
These  two  passages  were  important  enough  to  be 
seriously  noted  by  the  government  in  London,  and 
they  marked  successive  stages  in  the  progress  of 
the  stream  which  was  rushing  to  the  plunge. 

The  Boston  Massacre  is  the  popular  name  of  the 
transaction  which  brought  into  collision  the  people 
of  Boston  and  the  garrison  stationed  there.  It  must 
be  remembered  that  Boston  had  never  been  a  garri- 
son town.  No  such  thing  as  a  soldier  in  time  of 
peace  was  known  in  Massachusetts  ;  in  time  of  war 
every  man  was  a  soldier,  or  might  be.  In  time  of 
peace  he  was  a  member  of  the  train-band,  and  was 
obliged  to  appear  for  drill  once  or  twice  every  year ; 
but  he  was  not  a  soldier  and  did  not  think  himself 
a  soldier.  In  times  of  peace,  with  a  very  few 
transient  exceptions,  no  soldiers  belonging  to  a 
standing  army  had  ever  been  seen  in  Massachusetts. 
To  this  hour,  the  presence  of  a  man  in  military  uni- 
form in  a  street  in  Massachusetts  excites  curiosity ; 
it  is  known  that  he  represents  some  anniversary  or 
other  festival.  A  man  might  travel  from  town  to 
town  in  Massachusetts  for  years,  and  never  see  such 
a  person.  But  the  government  in  England  was  used 
to  moving  troops  from  place  to  place,  and  posting 
them  in  garrisons.  Nay,  it  was  considered  a  favor 
in  England  to  have  a  body  of  troops  stationed  in  a 
town ;  you  may  see  in  the  English  novels  that  a 
regiment  is  received  with  a  certain  interest  or  en- 
thusiasm. But  in  the  towns  of  New  England  this- 


THE  BOSTON  MASSACRE.  241 

was  not  so  ;  the  presence  of  a  regiment  was  in  itself 
an  insult.  When  that  regiment  wore  a  uniform 
which  was  not  the  uniform  of  Cromwell  and  his  men 
—  that  is,  was  not  the  blue  and  buff  in  which  the 
battles  of  Naseby  and  Worcester  had  been  won  — 
the  uniform  itself  was  the  sign  of  a  foreigner. 
When,  therefore,  Grenville's  administration,  by  way 
of  marking  its  disapprobation  of  the  Hutchinson 
riot,  ordered  some  companies  of  troops  to  go  up 
from  the  castle  in  Boston  Harbor,  and  to  live  in  the 
little  town  of  Boston,  the  town  of  Boston  took  this 
as  an  insult,  and  an  insult  it  was. 

It  was  on  the  first  of  October,  1766,  that  seven 
hundred  men,  with  muskets  loaded,  were  sent  from 
the  castle  to  Boston,  and  encamped  upon  the  Com- 
mon. In  November,  parts  of  two  more  regiments 
joined  them,  and  quarters  for  the  winter  were  found 
for  all  of  them,  so  that  here  were  more  than  a 
thousand  men  in  red  coats,  carrying  weapons,  when 
all  was  at  peace.  The  town  did  not  number  more 
than  twelve  thousand  people,  so  that  one  man  out 
of  four  of  its  adult  population  appeared  as  a  paid 
"  loafer,"  sent  by  the  Government  across  the  sea  to 
insult  the  people.  The  common  soldier  of  England 
was  in  that  day  enlisted  from  the  very  dregs  of  her 
population.  From  the  very  beginning,  therefore, 
there  followed  collisions  between  these  soldiers  and 
the  sailors  of  Boston  and  the  floating  population  of 
the  lowest  class.  They  made  appointments  to  fight 
each  other,  and  these  quarrels  culminated  on  the 
night  of  the  Boston  Massacre. 


242  THE  BOSTON  MASSACRE. 

On  the  night  of  the  third  of  March,  a  party  of 
soldiers  and  a  party  of  rope-makers  had  agreed  to 
meet  each  other  in  a  sort  of  duel.  They  fought  with 
clubs,  near  midnight,  and  several  men  were  badly 
wounded  on  each  side.  The  next  night  an  attempt 
was  made  to  renew  the  fight,  which  was  suppressed 
with  some  difficulty.  On  the  evening  of  the  fifth 
of  March,  two  young  men  tried  to  pass  a  sentinel  at 
the  foot  of  the  street  now  called  Cornhill,  near  where 
the  statue  of  Samuel  Adams  stands,  very  properly, 
to-day.  The  sentinel  tried  to  stop  them,  and  a- 
struggle  ensued. 

The  encounter  itself  was  trifling,  but  it  called  out 
the  neighbors,  and  a  file  of  troops  came  up  from 
King  Street  where  the  officer  of  the  day  was  posted. 
The  English  officers  succeeded  in  drawing  their  men 
back  into  their  barracks,  but  by  this  time  a  large 
body  of  the  people  of  Boston  had  met,  and  they  saw 
nnother  sentinel  who  was  stationed  in  front  of  the 
Custom  House.  This  Custom  House  was  on  the  east 
side  of  King  Street,  now  State  Street,  at  the  corner 
of  what  is  now  known  as  Devonshire  Street.  A  boy 
pointed  out  this  sentinel  as  being  a  man  who  had 
knocked  him  down  lately,  and  a  mob  gathered  to  . 
pelt  the  poor  fellow  with  snow-balls  and  other  mis- 
siles. He  tried  to  enter  the  building  for  protection., 
but  the  door  was  locked  and  he  was  obliged  to  call 
for  the  main  guard. 

The  officer  in  command  sent  six  men  to  his  relief ; 
he  also  sent  for  Captain  Preston,  the  officer  of  the 
day.  Meanwhile  an  immense  crowd  gathered,  and 


THE  BOSTON  MASSACRE.  243 

the  bells  were  rung  as  if  for  fire.  Preston  with  six 
more  men  joined  the  first  file  of  six  men.  They  fell 
back  in  a  curved  line  in  front  of  the  Custom  House. 
Preston  knew,  and  the  mob  knew,  that  his  men 
must  not  fire  without  the  order  of  a  civil  magistrate, 
He  behaved  with  moderation  and  judgment  through 
the  whole  affair.  The  mob  dared  the  soldiers  to 
fire.  "  Come  on,  lobster-backs !  "  "  Come  on,  bloody 
backs  ! "  These  were  allusions  to  the  hated  red- 
coats, which,  as  has  been  said,  were  the  sign  of  a 
foreign  invasion.  "  Fire  if  you  dare !  "  "  Damn 
you,  why  don't  you  fire  ?  " 

At  last  a  soldier  received  a  severe  blow  from  a 
club ;  he  leveled  his  piece  and  fired.  Immediately 
after,  seven  or  eight  more  of  the  soldiers  fired  ;  three 
of  the  people  were  killed,  two  others  were  mortally 
wounded,  and  six  slightly  wounded.  The  rest  of  the 
mob  fled,  and  Preston  was  able  to  withdraw  his  men 
without  injury. 

The  drums  beat  to  arms,  the  Twenty-ninth  Regi- 
ment paraded  in  King  Street.  Thomas  Hutchinson 
was  governor ;  he  was  already  present,  and  addressed 
the  people  from  the  balcony  of  the  town  house.  He 
promised  a  full  investigation  in  the  morning;  a  citi- 
zen's guard  of  a  hundred  men  took  charge  of  the 
streets  and  peace  was  restored.  Early  in  the  next 
morning  Preston  gave  himself  up  for  trial. 

Everybody  had  feared  such  a  collision  as  this,  and 
under  the  circumstances  such  a  collision  was  inevi- 
table. Wholly  apart  from  what  followed,  it  is  an 
event  of  great  historical  interest,  as  marking  the 


244  THE  BOSTON  MASSACRE. 

point  since  which  the  posting  of  garrisons  in  large 
towns  of  these  States  in  time  of  peace  has  been  vir- 
tually impossible.  The  popular  leaders  took  the 
ground  from  the  first  that  to  place  soldiers  in  the 
midst  of  peaceful  people  was  a  violation  of  the  rights 
of  those  people ;  and  one  of  the  allegations  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  introduced  for  the  pur- 
pose of  showing  the  tyranny  of  George  III.,  is  that 
"  he  has  kept  among  us,  in  times  of  peace,  standing 
armies  without  the  consent  of  our  legislature." 

The  next  morning  the  selectmen  of  Boston  waited 
on  the  governor  and  council  to  enforce  this  view. 
A  town-meeting  was  held  at  Faneuil  Hall  to  await 
Hutchinson's  reply.  Hutchinson  said  that  the  troops 
were  under  military  orders,  being  under  the  com- 
mand of  General  Gage  at  New  York.  But  with  the 
fatal  facility  of  a  weak  man  he  said  that  Colonel 
Dalrymple  would  withdraw  the  Twenty-ninth  Regi- 
ment to  the  castle  in  the  Bay.  • 

Faneuil  Hall  pronounced  this  answer  unsatis- 
factory, and  Sam  Adams,  at  the  head  of  a  com- 
mittee, waited  upon  Hutchinson  again.  It  was  then 
that  Adams  made  the  celebrated  remark  that  if 
there  was  power  to  remove  one  regiment,  there  was 
power  to  remove  two,  and  that  nothing  less  would 
satisfy  the  people.  Hutchinhon  gave  way,  and  the 
regiments  were  removed  to  the  castle  in  the  Bay. 
The  Boston  Massacre  thus  resulted  in  a  popular  tri- 
umph, and  from  that  time  forward  the  young  king 
always  called  those  two  regiments  "Sam  Adams's 
regiments." 


SAMUEL  ADAilb. 


THE  BOSTON  MASSACRE.  245 

Preston  was  tried  for  murder.  He  was  defended 
by  two  of  the  patriot  lawyers,  Josiah  Quincy  and 
John  Adams,  whose  names  afterwards  became  famous, 
and  he  was  acquitted.  Two  of  the  soldiers  were 
found  guilty  of  manslaughter;  the  rest  were  ac- 
quitted. Under  the  inhuman  law  of  the  time,  these 
two  poor  fellows  were  branded  in  the  hand.  Hutch- 
inson,  the  weak  governor,  who  could  have  pardoned 
them,  said  this  was  of  little  consequence  to  the  pris- 
oners, and  he  thought  it  advisable  not  to  interfere. 

Meanwhile,  the  .questions  regarding  revenue  had 
never  been  settled.  All  the  colonies  had  exulted  in 
the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act ;  they  had  even  put  up 
statues  to  George  III.  and  to  Pitt  in  New  York,  in 
gratitude  for  their  assent  to  that  repeal.  But,  as  the 
stupid  king  said,  the  right  to  tax  must  be  preserved, 
and  a  revenue  bill  had  been  passed  which  imposed  a 
new  import  duty  on  tea,  glass,  paper  and  painter's 
colors.  At  this  time  the  English  government  was 
not  troubled  simply  by  its  relations  with  the  inde- 
pendent colonies,  but  was  in  the  grip  of  one  of  those 
anacondas  known  as  great  trading  corporations,  and 
the  immediate  crisis  under  which  America  parted 
from  England  was  a  crisis  brought  about  by  that 
fatal  necessity  in  which  a  government  of  England 
had  to  sustain  the  East  India  Company.  This  com- 
pany was  in  difficulty ;  Lord  North  had  lent  it  a 
million  and  a  half  of  money  to  save  it  from  bank- 
ruptcy. The  Americans  refused  to  drink  tea  which 
carne  from  England,  because  they  would  not  pay 
the  newly  imposed  duty. 


246  THE  BOSTON  MASSACRE. 

The  course  of  .trade  which  the  Navigation  Act  re- 
quired compelled  the  East  India  Company  to  land 
its  tea  in  England  and  then  to  export  it  to  Amer- 
ica. When  they  landed  in  England  they  paid  six- 
pence. Lord  North  understood  human  nature  but 
little,  and  understood  the  American  colonies  not  at 
all.  He  offered  to  the  East  India  Company  to  repay 
them  their  sixpence  in  England,  as  a  drawback  on 
all  teas  exported  to  America.  The  Americans  were 
to  pay  threepence  where  the  English  paid  sixpence, 
and  Lord  North  thus  gave  to  the  Americans  a  sus- 
pension of  the  Navigation  Act,  so  far  as  those  teas- 
were  concerned. 

To  this  plan  Parliament  consented.  The  directors 
of  the  East  India  Company  knew  America  better  than 
Lord  North  did  ;  they  begged  to  be  permitted  to  land 
the  tea  free  in  America,  and  to  continue  to  pay  in 
England  the  sixpence  which  the  government  offered. 
But  the  king  said,  "  There  must  be  one  tax  to  keep 
the  right  to  tax."  The  company  therefore  chartered 
its  own  ships  and  freighted  them  for  America,  con- 
signing them  to  different  seaports.  Their  arrival  in 
the  autumn  of  1773,  renewed  all  the  excitement  of 
the  original  Stamp  Act. 

Whether  in  theory  America  should  or  should  not 
submit  to  import  duty  was  a  matter  not  now  dis- 
cussed at  all.  She  was  determined  not  to  sacrifice 
the  real  independence  which  she  had  always  enjoyed 
at  the  dictate  of  a  coterie  in  the  English  cabinet,  or 
of  a  great  trading  company,  or  of  a  majority  in  the 
English  parliament.  In  different  importing  cities 


THE  BOSTON  MASSACRE.  247 

different  measures  were  taken  to  make  it  certain 
that  none  of  this  tea  should  be  put  upon  America. 
In  Boston  such  matters  were  discussed  in  town  meet- 
ings in  Faneuil  Hall.  By  this  time  Samuel  Adams 
and  the  men  who  agreed  with  him  had  instituted  a 
system  of  correspondence  which  kept  them  in  con- 
nection with  the  towns  in  the  colony  and  was  event- 
ually extended  to  all  the  patriotic  assemblies  in 
other  colonies. 

When  the  tea  arrived,  a  town  meeting  was  held, 
and  the  neighboring  towns  were  invited  to  send  rep- 
resentatives to  it.  Such  representatives  were  pres- 
ent, but  the  meeting  was  called  a  formal  meeting  of 
the  town  of  Boston  and  the  town  clerk  kept  the 
record.  It  acted  as  such,  and  it  gave  the  "  instruc- 
tions of  the  town  "  to  the  consignees  of  the  tea  ships 
to  send  them  back  to  England.  The  consignees  re- 
plied that  they  could  not  pass  the  fort  in  the  harbor 
without  a  permit  from  Governor  Hutchinson.  The 
town  bade  them  obtain  such  a  permit  at  once,  but 
Hutchinson  refused  to  give  it. 

When  the  news  of  his  refusal  came  the  sun  had 
set ;  the  town  meeting  had  been  in  session  all  day. 
Its  meeting  had  been  at  the  Old  South  Meeting 
House,  having  adjourned  from  Faneuil  Hall.  When 
the  messenger  from  the  governor  announced  his  re- 
fusal to  give  the  permits,  Sam  Adams  arose  and  said, 
"  This  meeting  can  do  nothing  more  to  save  the 
country."  At  that  moment  a  war  whoop  sounded 
outside  the  building  and  the  crowd  rushed  out.  It 
saw  a  body  of  men  rudely  disguised  as  Indians  on 


248  THE  BOSTON  MASSACRE. 

their  way  to  the  ships.  These  men  came  from  the 
"  North  End ; "  they  were  joined  by  another  body 
from  the  "  South  End."  The  arrangements  had 
been  carefully  concerted,  probably  in  the  secrecy  of 
Masonic  lodge  rooms.  In  all,  a  body  of  forty  or  fifty 
young  men  met  at  the  wharves  where  the  vessels  lay. 
The  population  of  Boston  followed  from  the  Meeting 
House  and  elsewhere.  The  Indians  set  a  guard  to 
keep  all  others  from  the  ships  ;  they  took  possession 
of  the  vessels ;  with  the  skill  of  men  used  to  the 
business,  they  hoisted  the  tea-chests  from  the  hold, 
they  split  them  open  with  axes,  and  threw  the  tea 
into  the  water.  Before  midnight  all  the  tea  was 
floating  on  the  waves,  and  with  the  ebb-tide  it  was 
taken  out  to  sea. 

This  was  the  answer  of  the  town  of  Boston  to  the 
•Crown. 

It  excited  the  greatest  indignation  in  court  circles. 
The  news  of  it  arrived  in  England  just  after  Frank- 
lin had  appeared  before  the  Privy  Council,  and  had 
been  bullied  there  by  Wedderburn  —  a  man  of  mark 
in  his  day,  who  is  now  only  remembered  as  the 
man  who  insulted  Franklin.  Horace  Walpole  made 
this  epigram  on  the  occasion  : 

"  Sarcastic  Sawney,  swollen  with  spite  and  prate, 
On  silent  Franklin  poured  his  venal  hate; 
The  calm  philosopher,  without  reply, 
Withdrew,  and  gave  his  country  liberty." 

The  court  party  were  not  in  the  mood  to  forgive 
anything.  The  friends  of  America  in  Parliament 
•could  make  no  head  against  the  storm  of  resentment, 


THE  BOSTON  MASSACRE,  249 

and  the  Boston  Port  Bill,  as  it  is  always  called  here, 
was  passed  —  becoming  an  act,  and  not  a  bill,  by  its 
passage.  It  closed  the  harbor  of  Boston,  until 
Boston  should  repent,  and  meant  to  punish  the  town 
by  giving  its  commerce  to  the  other  maritime  towns 
of  New  England.  Meanwhile  Hutchinson,  who  had 
virtually  played  into  the  hands  of  the  court  party, 
although  he  was  a  New  Englander,  was  recalled  to 
England,  and  the  government  of  Massachusetts  was 
put  into  the  hands  of  Thomas  Gage,  the  military 
commander  in  America.  This  meant  that  the  con- 
troversy was  removed  from  civil  fields  to  the  arbitra- 
tion of  arms,  and  the  Crown  party  really  thought 
that  they  should  subjugate  Massachusetts  if  they  only 
sent  regiments  enough  for  the  purpose. 


CHAPTER   XVI. 

LEXINGTON   AND    CONCORD. 

ON  the  nineteenth  day  of  April,  one  thousand 
seven  hundred  and  seventy-five,  a  day  to  be 
remembered  by  all  Americans  of  the  present  gener- 
ation, and  which  ought  and  doubtless  will  be,  handed 
down  to  ages  yet  unborn,  the  troops  of  Britain,  unpro- 
voked, shed  the  blood  of  sundry  of  the  loyal  Ameri- 
can subjects  of  the  British  king  in  the  field  of 
Lexington." 

These  words  are  the  prophetic  introduction  of  the 
"  Narrative  of  the  Excursion  of  the  King's  Troops 
under  the  Command  of  General  Gage,"  which  the 
Provincial  Congress  of  Massachusetts  sent  to  England. 
"With  infinite  care  the  Congress  drew  up  depositions, 
which  were  sworn  to  before  "  His  Majesty's  justices 
of  the  peace,"  that,  with  all  legal  form,  they  might 
show  to  all  the  world  who  were  the  aggressors,  now 
that  the  crisis  had  come.  Then  they  intrusted  the 
precious  volume  of  these  depositions  to  Richard 
Derby  of  Salem,  who  sent  John  Derby  with  them  to 
England.  The  vessel  made  a  good  run,  arriving  on 
the  twenty-ninth  of  May  with  these  official  papers,  and 
the  Essex  Gazette,  which  had  the  published  accounts. 
The  Sukey,  Captain  Brown,  with  the  government 

250 


LEXINGTON  AND    CONCORD.  251 

accounts  forwarded  by  General  Gage,  did  not  arrive 
till  eleven  days  after.  Meanwhile  Arthur  Lee  and 
all  the  friends  of  America  in  London  were  steadily 
publishing  the  news  of  the  "ministerial"  attack  on 
the  people,  and  the  people's  repulse  of  the  army. 
The  public  charged  the  government  with  concealing 
the  news.  Thus  was  it  that,  when 

"the  embattled  farmers  stood, 
And  fired  the  shot  heard  round"  the  world," 

they  told  their  own  story. 

All  parties  had  fair  notice  that  the  crisis  was 
coming  ;  and  they  had  a  good  chance  to  guess  how 
it  was  coming.  On  the  thirtieth  of  March,  by  way  of 
seeing  how  people  would  bear  the  presence  of  an 
army,  and  how  the  army  would  march  after  a  winter's 
rest  and  rust,  Earl  Percy  with  five  regiments  marched 
out  over  Boston  Neck,  into  the  country.  Boston 
people  can  trace  him  by  walking  out  on  Washington 
Street,  where  the  sea-water  then  flowed  on  both  sides, 
up  the  hill  at  Roxbury,  on  the  right  of.  the  church, 
and  heeding  Governor  Dudley's  parting-stone  which 
still  stands,  let  them  take  Center  Street,  "  to  Dedham 
and  Rhode  Island."  Along  that  road  to  Jamaica 
Plain,  Earl  Percy  marched,  his  drums  and  fifes  play- 
ing Yankee  Doodle.  The  spring  was  very  early. 
Some  soldiers  straggled,  and  trampled  down  gardens 
and  fields  that  had  been  planted,  perhaps  the  fall  be- 
fore. From  Jamaica  Plain,  Earl  Percy  led  them  across 
to  Dorchester  ;  and  by  the  Dorchester  road  they  came 
Lome.  Very  indignant  was  the  Provincial  Congress 


252  LEXINGTON  AND    CONCORD. 

and  the  committees  of  safety  at  this  first  "  invasion  " 
of  the  country  ;  and  all  people  guessed  that  Concord 
would  be  the  point  of  the  next  "  excursion,"  because 
at  Concord  was  one  of  the  largest  deposits  of  stores 
which  the  Province  of  Massachusetts  had  collected 
in  its  preparation  against  the  British  empire. 

As  early  as  February  9,  the  Provincial  Congress 
had  intimated  their  intention  of  stopping  such 
';  excursions."  They  had  appointed  the  celebrated 
"  Committee  of  Safety,"  with  the  express  purpose  of 
checking  them.  Of  this  committee  :  — 

•'  The  business  and  duty  it  shall  be,  most  carefully  and  diligently  to 
inspect  and  observe  all  and  every  such  person  or  persons  as  shall  at 
any  time  attempt  to  carry  into  execution,  by  force,  an  act  of  the  British 
parliament,  entitled  '  An  Act  for  the  Better  Regulating  the  Government 
of  the  Province  of  Massachusetts  Bay,  in  New  England '  .  .  .  which 
said  committee,  or  any  five  of  them,  provided  always  that  not  more 
than  one  of  the  said  five  shall  be  an  inhabitant  of  the  town  of  Boston, 
shall  have  power,  and  they  are  hereby  empowered  and  directed,  when 
they  shall  judge  that  such  attempt  or  attempts  are  made,  to  alarm, 
muster,  and  cause  to  be  assembled  with  the  utmost  expedition,  and 
completely  armed,  accoutered,  and  supplied  with  provisions  sufficient 
for  their  support  in  their  march  to  the  place  of  rendezvous,  such  and 
so  many  of  the  militia  of  this  Province  as  they  shall  judge  necessary 
for  the  end  and  purpose  of  opposing  such  attempt  or  attempts,  and  at 
such  place  or  places  as  they  shall  judge  proper,  and  them  to  discharge 
as  the  safety  of  the  Province  shall  permit." 

This,  it  will  be  observed,  was  full  preparation  for 
war,  only  the  Provincial  Congress  meant  that  Gen- 
eral Gage  should  strike  the  first  blow. 
.  Meanwhile,  Ensign  Berniere  of  the  10th  Royal 
Infantry,  with  a  companion,  Captain  Brown,  were 
sent  to  see  what  there  was  at  Concord.  They  left 
their  journal  behind  them,  when,  the  next  year,  the 


LEXINGTON  AND    CONCORD.  253 

English  army  evacuated  Boston  ;  and  so  we  are  able 
to  trace  their  inarch  to-day. 

And  so  it  happened  that  late  in  the  evening  of  the 
eighteenth  of  April,  when  it  was  supposed  most  of 
the  Boston  people  were  in  bed,  about  eight  hundred 
soldiers  —  grenadiers,  light-infantry  and  marines  — 
were  embarked  in  the  boats  of  the  navy,  very  near 
the  place  where  the  Old  Providence  Station  stood, 
where  then  the  tide  rose  and  fell.  Eemember  that 
there  was  no  bridge  at  that  time  from  Boston  on 
any  side.  The  little  army  was  ferried  across  to 
Lechmere's  Point,  not  far  from  the  Court  House  of 
to-day ;  it  lost  two  hours  in  going  so  far,  and  then  took 
up  its  silent  line  of  march  through  Cambridge,  by 
what  is  still  remembered  as  Milk  Row.  At  the  tav- 
ern in  Menotomy,  now  West  Cambridge,  the  rebel 
committee  of  safety  had  been  in  session  the  day  be- 
fore. Dear  Old  General  Heath,  till  then  only  "our 
colonel,"  whose  memoirs  come  in  in  the  most  enter- 
taining readirg  of  the  time,  had  been  there.  But  he 
had  gone  home  to  Roxbury. 

Here,  in  the  garrulous  old  eighteenth  century 
style,  is  his  account  of  what  happened  to  those  who 
staid  :  — 

"On  the  nineteenth,  at  daybreak,  our  general  was  awoke,  called 
from  his  bed,  and  informed  that  a  detachment  of  the  British  army  were 
out,  that  they  had  crossed  from  Boston  to  Phipps's  Farm  in  boats,  and 
had  gone  towards  Concord,  as  was  supposed,  with  intent  to  destroy 
the  public  stores.  They  probably  had  notice  that  the  committees  had. 
met  the  preceding  day  at  Wetherby's  Tavern,  at  Menotomy;  for,  when 
they  came  opposite  to  the  house,  they  halted.  Several  of  the  gentle- 
men slept  there  during  the  night.  Among  them  were  Col.  Orne.  Col. 
Lee  and  Mr.  Gerry.  One  of  them  awoke  and  informed  the  others  that 


254  LEXINGTON  AND    CONCORD. 


a  body  of  the  British  were  before  the  house.  They  immediately  made 
their  escape,  without  time  to  dress  themselves,  at  the  back  door,  re- 
ceiving some  injury  from  obstacles  in  the  way,  in  their  undressed 
state.  They  made  their  way  into  the  fields." 


Heath  had  met  on  his  way  home  officers  who  tried 
to  keep  the  news  of  the  "  excursion  "  from  reaching 
Concord  ;  but  the  country  was  alarmed,  and  Colonel 
Smith  sent  back  to  Boston  for  a  reinforcement.  Gen- 
eral Gage  had  expected  the  request,  and  had  ordered 
the  first  brigade  under  arms  at  four  that  morning. 
These  orders  were  carried  to  the  first  brigade-major's. 
He  was  not  at  home  ;  and  when  he  came  home,  his 
servant  forgot  to  tell  of  the  letter.  At  four  o'clock 
no  brigade  appeared.  At  five  o'clock  Colonel  Smith's 
express  came,  asking  the  reinforcement.  On  in- 
quiry, it  proved  that  no  orders  were  given  ;  and  it 
was  not  till  six  that  a  part  of  the  brigade  paraded. 
They  waited  till  seven  for  the  marines.  Is  not  all 
this  like  a  village  muster  to-day  ?  At  seven,  there 
being  still  no  marines,  it  proved  that  the  order  for 
them  had  been  addressed  to  Major  Pitcairn,  who  was 
by  this  time  far  away,  and  had  indeed  begun  the 
war  already,  without  knowing  it,  by  firing  his  pistol 
on  Lexington  Common.  So  the  half  of  the  brigade 
waited,  and  waited,  till  the  marines  could  be  got 
ready,  and  when  they  were  ready  at  nine  o'clock, 
started  over  Boston  Neck  ;  for  now  they  had  no 
boats  :  so  that  they  must  e'en  go  six  miles  round  by 
land,  as  every  Bostonian  will  see,  for  there  were  then 
no  bridges.  So  they  carne  to  Dudley's  parting-stone 
playing  "  Yankee  Doodle  "  again  ;  but  when  they 


LEXINGTON  AND    CONCORD.  255 

reached  the  stone  this  time,  they  took  the  right- 
hand  road  "  to  Cambridge  and  Watertown."  A 
Roxbury  boy  who  sat  on  a  stone  wall  to  see  them 
pass  prophesied  thus  to  •  Percy,  referring  to  the 
history  of  his  noble  house  :  — 

"  You  go  out  by  '  Yankee  Doodle  ' ;  but  you  will 
come  back  by  '  Chevy  Chase.'  " 

While  the  half-brigade  was  waiting  for  the 
marines  on  what  is  now  Tremont  Street,  its  line 
crossing  the  head  of  Beacon  Street,  a  little  boy  nine 
years  old,  named  Harrison  Gray  Otis,  was  on  his  way 
to  the  old  school  in  School  Street,  where  Parker's 
Hotel  stands  to-day.  Here  is  his  account  of  it.  It 
is,  so  far  as  I  know,  the  only  glimpse  we  have  of 
Boston  life  on  that  memorable  morning :  — 

"  On  the  nineteenth  of  April,  1775,  I  went  to  school  for  the  last 
time.  In  the  morning,  about  seven,  Percy's  brigade  was  drawn  up,  ex- 
tending from  Scollay's  buildings,  through  Tremont  Street,  and  nearly 
to  the  bottom  of  the  mall,  preparing  to  take  up  their  march  for  Lex- 
ington. A  corporal  came  up  to  me  as  I  was  going  to  school,  and 
turned  me  off  to  pass  down  Court  Street;  which  I  did,  and  came  up 
School  Street  to  the  schoolhouse.  It  may  well  be  imagined  that  great 
agitation  prevailed,  the  British  line  being  drawn  up  a  few  yards  only 
from  the  schoolhouse-door.  As  I  entered  school,  I  heard  the  announce- 
ment of  '  drponite  libros,'  and  ran  home  for  fear  of  the  regulars.  Here 
ended  my  connection  with  Mr.  Lovell's  administration  of  the  school. 
Soon  afterwards  I  left  town,  and  did  not  return  until  after  the  evacua- 
tion by  the  British,  in  March,  1776. 

Colonel  Smith  and  his  eight  hundred  had  pressed 
on  meanwhile.  The  alarm  had  been  so  thoroughly 
given  in  Lexington,  that  at  two  o'clock  the  militia 
had  assembled  (one  hundred  and  thirty  in  number)  ; 
and  John  Parker  their  captain,  had  ordered  them  to 


256  LEXINGTON  AND    CONCORD. 

load  with  powder  and  ball.  This  John  is  the  grand- 
father of  one  Theodore,  who  will  appear  two  genera- 
tions afterwards.  No  sign  of  any  troops ;  and  the 
men  were  dismissed  with  .orders  to  assemble  again  at 
the  beat  of  drum.  Most  of  them  thought  that  the 
whole  was  a  false  alarm.  But  Gage's  officers  in  the 
advance  of  the  English  column,  came  back  to  it  on 
its  march,  and  reported  that  five  hundred  men  were 
in  arms.  Major  Pitcairn  of  the  marines  had  com- 
mand of  six  companies  of  light  infantry  in  advance. 
He  caught  all  of  Parker's  scouts  except  Thaddeus 
Bowman,  who  galloped  back  to  Lexington  Common 
and  gave  to  Parker  tidings  of  the  approach  of  the 
column. 

Parker  ordered  the  drum  to  beat ;  and  his  men 
began  to  collect.  He  ordered  Sergeant  William 
Munroe  to  form  them  in  two  ranks,  a  few  rods  north 
of  the  meeting-house.  The  English  officers  hearing 
the  drum,  halted  their  troops,  bade  them  prime  and 
load,  and  then  marched  forward  at  double-quick. 
Sixty  or  seventy  of  the  militia  had  assembled.  The 
tradition  is,  that  Parker  had  bidden  the  men  not  fire 
till  they  were  fired  upon,  but  added,  "  If  they  mean 
to  have  a  war,  let  it  begin  here."  Double-quick  on 
one  side ;  on  the  other,  Sergeant  Munroe  forming 
his  men  as  well  as  he  can.  Major  Pitcairn  is  in  the 
advance.  "  Ye  villains,  ye  rebels,  disperse !  Lay 
down  your  arms !  Why  don't  ye  lay  down  your 
arms  ?"  He  saw  a  gun  flash  in  the  pan.  The  men 
did  not  disperse.  Pitcairn  declared,  till  the  day  he 
died  at  Bunker  Hill,  that  he  gave  no  order  to  fire, 


LEXINGTON  AND    CONCORD.  257 

that  he  commanded  not  to  fire ;  and  it  seems  to  be 
admitted  that  he  struck  his  staff  or  sword  downward, 
as  a  signal  to  forbear  firing.  But  some  men  in  his 
party  fired  irregularly,  and  hurt  no  one.  Then  came 
a  general  discharge  from  the  English  line,  and  many 
men  were  killed  or  wounded.  The  militia  returned 
the  fire  —  some  before  leaving  their  line,  some  after 
—  and  the  war  was  begun.  Here  is  Captain  John 
Parker's  account  of  the  fight,  one  of  the  papers 
which  Captain  Derby  carried  to  London :  — 


"  I,  John  Parker,  of  lawful  age,  and  commander  of  the  militia  at 
Lexington,  do  testify  and  declare,  that  on  the  nineteenth  instant,  in 
the  morning,  about  one  of  the  clock,  being  informed  that  there  were 
a  number  of  the  regular  officers  riding  up  and  down  the  road,  stopping 
and  insulting  people  as  they  passed  the  road,  and  also  informed  that 
a  number  of  the  regular  troops  were  on  their  march  from  Boston,  in 
order  to  take  the  Province  stores  at  Concord,  I  ordered  our  militia  to 
meet  on  the  common  in  said  Lexington,  to  consult  what  to  do;  and 
concluded  not  to  be  discovered,  nor  meddle,  nor  make  with  said  regu- 
lar troops,  if  they  should  approach,  unless  they  should  insult  or  molest 
us;  and,  upon  their  sudden  approach,  I  immediately  ordered  our  militia 
to  disperse,  and  not  to  fire.  Immediately  said  troops  made  their  ap- 
pearance, and  rushing  furiously  on,  fired  upon  and  killed  eight  of  our 
party,  without  receiving  any  provocation  therefor  from  us." 

"  MIDDLESEX  ss.,  April  25,  1775. 

"  The  above-named  John  Parker  personally  appeared,  and,  after 
being  duly  cautioned  to  tell  the  whole  truth,  made  solemn  oath  to  the 
truth  of  the  above  deposition  by  him  subscribed  before  us. 

' '  WILLIAM  REED. 
"  JOSHUA  JOHNSON. 
"WILLIAM  STICKNEY. 

"Justices  of  the  Peace." 

That  is  the  way  those  people  went  to  war.  They 
fought  one  day ;  and  then  they  made  depositions  to 
secure  the  truth  of  history.  Henry  Clay  was  greatly 


258  LEXINGTON  AND    CONCORD. 

amused  when  Dr.  Palfrey,  our  New  England  his- 
torian, told  him  of  these  depositions.  He  heard  the 
story  in  some  detail,  and  then  said,  "  Tell  me  that 
again." 

But  they  did  not  stop  for  depositions  then.  The 
militia  retired  :  some  here,  some  there.  The  Eng- 
lish troops  fired  a  volley  on  the  Common,  and  gave 
three  cheers.  Colonel  Smith  came  up  with  the  main 
party  ;  and  they  all  pressed  on  to  Concord.  Two  of 
their  party  had  been  wounded.  Major  Pitcairn's 
horse  was  struck  by  a  ball ;  and,  after  the  column 
left  Lexington,  six  of  the  regulars  were  taken  pris- 
oners. The  musket  of  one  of  them  is  in  the  State 
House  to-day. 

Meanwhile  the  Concord  militia  had  the  alarm,  and 
had  formed.  The  minute-men  and  some  of  the 
militia  from  Lincoln,  the  next  town,  had  joined 
them.  Some  of  the ;  companies  marched  down  the 
Lexington  road  till  they  saw.  the  approaching 
column.  They  saw  they  were  outnumbered ;  and 
they  fell  back  to  a  hill  about  eighty  rods  distance 
back  of  the  town,  where  they  formed.  Colonel 
Barrett,  their  commander,  joined  them  here.  He 
had  been  at  work  that  day  executing  such  commands 
as  these,  given  by  the  committee  of  safety  the  day 
before.  They  are  worth  looking  back  upon  as  illus- 
trations of  the  preparations  of  these  days  :  — 

"APRIL  18,  1775. 

"  Voted,  That  part  of  the  provisions  be  removed  from  Concord; 
viz.,  fifty  barrels  of  beef  from  thence  to  Sudbury,  with  Deacon  Plymp- 
ton,  a  hundred  barrels  of  flour  (of  which  what  is  in  the  malt-house  \n 


LEXINGTON  AND    CONCORD.  259 

Concord  be  part)  twenty  casks  of  rice,  fifteen  hogsheads  of  molasses, 
ten  hogsheads  of  rum,  five  hundred  candles. 

"  Voted,  That  the  musket-balls  under  the  care  of  Colonel  Barrett 
be  buried  under  ground  in  some  safe  place ;  that  he  be  desired  to  do 
it,  and  to  let  the  commissary  only  be  informed  thereof." 

Still  finding  himself  outnumbered,  Colonel  Barrett 
then  withdrew  his.  force  over  the  North  Bridge  to  the 
other  side  of  Concord  River ;  and  the  little  English 
army  marched  into  the  town. 

Three  of  their  companies  were  stationed  at  the 
bridge  :  three  companies  were  sent  to  Colonel  Bar- 
rett's house,  two  miles  distant,  to  destroy  the  maga- 
zine. Did  they  find  the  musket-bullets  ?  No. 
Another  party  was  sent  to  the  South  Bridge.  In  the 
center  of  the  town  they  broke  off  the  trunnions  of 
three  new  cannon,  destroyed  what  stores  they  could 
find,  among  others  some  wooden  spoons  and  trench- 
ers, which  appear  quite  conspicuously  in  all  the  ac- 
counts. But  from  all  such  work  all  parties  were 
called  by  firing  at  the  North  Bridge. 

All  this  time,  minute-men  from  all  parts  of  Mid- 
dlesex County  had  been  pouring  in  on  the  high 
grounds  where  Colonel  Barrett  had  formed  his  men. 
They  saw  at  last  that  the  troops  had  fired  the  town, 
in  one  place  and  another.  The  court-house  was  on 
fire.  Captain  William  Smith  of  Lincoln  volunteered 
to  take  his  company  and  dislodge  the  guard  at  the 
bridge.  Isaac  Davis  of  the  Acton  company,  made 
the  remark,  which  has  become  a  proverb,  "  There 
is  not  a  man  of  my  company  that  is  afraid  to  go." 
Colonel  Barrett  ordered  the  attack,  bade  the  column 


260  LEXINGTON  AND   CONCORD. 

pass  the  bridge,  but  not  to  fire  unless  they  were 
fired  upon.  Again  the  passion  for  law  appeared  : 
41  It  is  the  king's  highway,  and  we  have  a  right  to 
march  upon  it,  if  we  march  to  Boston.  Forward, 
march  !  "  They  marched  to  the  air  of  "  the  White 
Cockade,"  the  quickest  step  their  fifes  could  play. 

Laurie,  in  command  of  the  English  party,  crossed 
back  on  the  bridge,  and  began  to  take  up  the  planks. 
Major  Buttrick,  who  commanded  the  attacking  party, 
hurried  his  men.  When  they  were  within  a  few 
rods,  the  English  fired,  in  three  several  discharges. 
Mr.  Emerson,  the  minister  of  Concord  (the  grand- 
father of  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson),  watched  the  scene, 
and  made  his  record  on  that  day.  Three  several 
discharges  were  made  by  the  English ;  and  Mr. 
Emerson  "was  very  uneasy  till  the  fire  was  re- 
turned." Isaac  Davis,  the  Acton  captain  and  Abner 
Hosmer  were  killed  ;  and  then  Major  Buttrick  gave 
the  order  to  fire.  The  English  retired.  The  Pro- 
vincials crossed  the  bridge  and  part  of  them  ascended 
the  bold  hill,  which  visitors  to  Concord  remember 
behind  the  meeting-house  on  the  right  of  the  town. 
The  English  party  under  Parsons  returned  from 
Barrett's  and  crossed  the  bridge  again  ;  but  they 
were  left  to  join  the  main  body  without  offense. 

One  English  soldier  had  been  killed  and  several 
wounded.  Colonel  Smith  delayed  his  return  till  he 
could  find  carriages  for  his  wounded ;  and  it  was 
noon  before  he  began  his  return.  Meanwhile,  north, 
south,  east  and  west,  couriers  had  been  speeding,  an- 
nouncing that  the  Lexington  militia  had  been  fired 


LEXINGTON  AND   CONCORD.  261 

on.  The  minute-men,  the  county  through,  had 
started  on  their  march.  They  did  not  know  what 
point  to  strike.  They  did  not  know  what  they  were 
to  do  when  they  came  there.  But  they  marched  : 
they  were  determined  to  be  in  time ;  and  in  time 
they  were.  The  populous  country  between  Boston 
and  Concord  was  in  arms.  The  men  knew  every 
inch  of  ground,  and,  after  they  had  had  their  shot 
at  the  regulars  in  one  place,  ran  across  country  and 
tried  them  again  in  another.  "  They  are  trained  to 
protect  themselves  behind  stone  walls,"  wrote  Gen- 
eral Gage  to  the  ministry.  "  They  seemed  to  drop 
from  the  clouds,"  says  an  English  soldier.  Poor 
Smith  and  his  party,  after  thirty  miles  of  tramping, 
came  back  to  Lexington  Common,  in  no  mood  for 
giving  three  huzzas  there.  They  made  quick  march- 
ing of  it,  and  were  there  by  two  in  the  afternoon. 
They  left  Concord  at  noon. 

"  A  number  of  our  officers  were  wounded,"  says 
Berniere ;  "  so  that  we  began  to  run  rather  than  re- 
treat in  order.  The  whole  behaved  with  amazing 
bravery,  but  little  order." 

Here  Percy  met  them  with  his  late  reinforcement ; 
here  they  rested,  and  then  resumed  the  retreat,  to 
receive  just  the  same  treatment  in  every  defile.  At 
West  Cambridge,  the  Danvers  company,  the  flank 
company  of  the  Essex  regiment,  had  come  up. 
Fifteen  miles  they  had  marched  in  four  hours, 
across  Essex  County.  It  was  sunset  before  the 
head  of  what  column  was  left  crossed  Charlestown 
Neck.  All  Boston  was  on  Beacon  Hill,  watching 


262  LEXINGTON  AND    CONCORD. 

for  their  return.  Through  the  gathering  twilight, 
men  could  see  from  the  hill  the  flashes  of  the  mus- 
kets on  Milk  Row ;  and  Percy  had  to  unlimber  his 
field-pieces,  and  bring  them  into  use  again.  It  was 
at  West  Cambridge  that  Dr.  Warren  so  exposed  him- 
self, that  a  pin  was  struck  out  of  the  hair  of  his  ear- 
lock.  General  Heath  was  by  this  time  exercising 
some  sort  of  command.  Late  in  the  afternoon,  when 
the  head  of  the  English  column  had  arrived  at  Bun- 
ker Hill,  an  aide  of  Pickering's  rode  up  to  Heath,  to 
announce  that  the  Essex  regiment  was  close  behind 
him.  Danvers  had  gone  across  country  :  the  rest  of 
the  regiment  had  marched  direct  to  Boston.  Heath 
judged  that  it  was  too  late  for  any  further  attack. 
The  English,  on  their  side,  planted  sentries  at  the 
Neck.  Heath  planted  them  on  the  other  side,  and 
ordered  the  militia  to  lie  on  their  arms  at  Cambridge. 
But,  long  before  this  time,  the  news  of  the  march 
had  traveled  north  and  west  and  south.  The  mem- 
ory of  the  rider  "  on  the  white  horse  "  is  still  told  in 
tradition,  reminding  one,  as  Governor  Washburn  has 
said,  of  the  white  horse  in  the  Revelation.  The 
march  and  retreat  were  on  Wednesday.  On  Sunday 
morning  they  had  a  rumor  of  it  in  New  York  ;  and 
on  Tuesday  they  had  a  second  express  from  New 
England  with  quite  a  connected  story.  This  story 
was  so  definite,  that  they  ventured  to  send  it  south 
by  express  as  they  received  it  from  New  Haven.  To 
Elizabeth  town,  to  Woodbridge,  to  New  Brunswick, 
to  Princeton,  it  flew  as  fast  as  horse  could  carry  it. 
The  indorsements  by  the  different  committees  show 


LEXINGTON  AND    CONCORD.  263 

their  eager  haste.  It  was  in  Baltimore  on  the 
twenty-seventh.  It  was  in  Georgetown,  S.  C.,  on 
the  tenth  of  May. 

It  told  how  the  king's  troops  were  besieged  on 
Winter  Hill ;  how  Lord  Percy  was  killed,  and 
another  general  officer  of  the  English,  on  the  first 
fire.  "  To  counterbalance  this  good  news,  the  story 
is,  that  our  first  man  in  command  (who  he  is,  I  know 
not)  is  also  killed."  No  man  since  has  known  who 
"  our  first  man  in  command  "  was.  There  was  no 
commander  all  day  long. 

The  dispatch  was  all  untrue.  But  it  told  of  war, 
and  it  fired  the  whole  country.  On  the  twentieth 
of  April  an  army  wras  around  Boston,  and  the  siege 
had  begun. 


NEW  ENGLAND'S  CHEVY  CHASE. 

'TWAS  the  dead  of  the  night.     By  the  pine-knot's  red  light 
Brooks  lay,  half  asleep,  when  he  heard  the  alarm  — 

Only  this,  and  no  more,  from  a  voice  at  the  door : 

"  The  Red-coats  are  out,  and  have  passed  Phipps's  farm  !  " 

Brooks  was  booted  and  spurred ;  he  said  never  a  word, 
Took  his  horn  from  its  peg,  and  his  gun  from  its  rack; 

To  the  cold  midnight  air  he  led  out  his  white  mare, 

Strapped  the  girths  and  the  bridle  and  sprang  to  her  back. 

Up  the  North  Country  road  at  her  full  pace  she  strode, 
Till  Brooks  reined  her  up  at  John  Tarbell's  to  say, 

"We  have  got  the  alarm  —  they  have  left  Phipps's  farm ; 
You  rouse  the  East  Precinct,  and  I'll  go  this  way." 

John  called  his  hired  man,  and  they  harnessed  the  span; 

They  roused  Abram  Garfleld,  and  Abram  called  me : 
"  Turn  out  right  away  —  let  no  minute-man  stay  — 

The  Red-coats  have  landed  at  Phipps's,"  says  he. 


264  LEXINGTON  AND   CONCORD. 


By  the  Powder-House  Green  seven  others  fell  in ; 

At  Nahum's,  the  men  from  the  saw-mill  came  clown ; 
So  that  when  Jabez  Bland  gave  the  word  of  command, 

And  said,  "  Forward,  march !  "  there  marched  forward  the  Town ! 

Parson  Wilderspin  stood  by  the  side  of  the  road, 
And  he  took  off  his  hat,  and  he  said,  "  Let  us  pray! 

0  Lord  God  of  might,  let  thine  angels  of  light 
Lead  thy  children  to-night  to  the  glories  of  day! 

And  let  thy  sons  fight  all  the  foes  of  the  right, 
As  the  stars  fought  of  old  against  Sisera." 

And  from  heaven's  high  arch  those  stars  blessed  our  march 

Till  the  last  of  them  faded  in  twilight  away, 
And  by  morning's  bright  beam,  by  the  bank  of  the  stream, 

Half  the  country  marched  in,  and  we  heard  Davis  say, 
"  On  the  King's  own  highway  I  may  travel  all  day, 

And  no  man  hath  warrant  to  stop  me,"  says  he ; 
"  I've  no  man  that's  afraid,  and  I'll  march  at  their  head." 

Then  he  turned  to  the  boys,  "  Forward,  march!    Follow  me." 

And  we  marched  as  he  said,  and  the  flfer  he  played 
The  old  "  White  Cockade,"  and  he  played  it  right  well. 

We  saw  Davis  fall  dead,  but  no  man  was  afraid  — 
That  bridge  we'd  have  had,  though  a  thousand  men  fell. 

This  opened  the  play,  and  it  lasted  all  day. 

We  made  Concord  too  hot  for  the  Red-coats  to  stay; 
Down  the  Lexington  way  we  stormed  —  Black,  White  and  Gray  : 

We  were  first  in  the  feast,  and  were  last  in  the  fray. 

They  would  turn  in  dismay,  as  red  wolves  turn  at  bay. 

They  leveled,  they  fired,  they  charged  up  the  road; 
Cephas  Willard  fell  dead ;  he  was  shot  in  the  head 

As  he  knelt  by  Aunt  Prudence's  well-sweep  to  load. 

John  Danforth  was  hit  just  in  Lexington  Street, 

John  Bridge  at  that  lane  where  you  cross  Beaver  Falls ; 

And  Winch  and  the  Snows  just  above  John  Munroe's  — 
Swept  away  by  one  swoop  of  the  big  cannon-balls. 

1  took  Bridge  on  my  knee,  but  he  said,  "  Don't  mind  me ; 
Fill  your  horn  from  mine  —  let  me  lie  where  I  be. 


LEXING  TON  AND    CONCORD.  265 


Our  fathers,"  said  he,  "  that  their  sons  might  be  free, 
Left  their  king  on  his  throne  and  came  over  the  sea ; 

And  that  man  is  a  knave  or  a  fool  who,  to  save 
His  life,  for  a  minute  would  live  as  a  slave." 

Well,  all  would  not  die.     There  were  men  good  as  new  — 
From  Rumford,  from  Saugus,  from  towns  far  away  — 

Who  filled  up  quick  and  well,  for  each  soldier  that  fell, 
And  we  drove  them  and  drove  them  and  drove  them  all  day. 

We  knew,  every  one,  it  was  war  that  begun, 
When  that  morning's  march  was  only  half -clone. 

In  the  hazy  twilight,  at  the  coming  of  night, 

I  crowded  three  buckshot  and  one  bullet  down. 
'Twas  my  last  charge  of  lead,  and  I  aimed  her  and  said, 
"Good  luck  to  you,  Lobsters,  in  old  Boston  Town." 

In  a  barn  at  Milk  Row,  Ephraim  Bates  and  Munroe, 

And  Baker  and  Abram  and  I  made  a  bed ; 
We  had  mighty  sore  feet,  and  we'd  nothing  to  eat, 

But  we'd  driven  the  Red-coats;  and  Amos,  he  said  : 
"  It's  the  ffrst  time,"  said  he,  "  that  it's  happened  to  me 

To  march  to  the  sea  by  this  road  where  we've  come ; 
But  confound  this  whole  day  but  we'd  all  of  us  say 

We'd  rather  have  spent  it  this  way  than  to  home." 

The  hunt  had  begun  with  the  dawn  of  the  sun. 

And  night  saw  the  wolf  driven  back  to  his  den. 
And  never  since  then,  in  the  memory  of  men, 

Has  the  Old  Bay  State  seen  such  a  hunting  again. 


CHAPTER   XVII. 

BATTLE    OF    BUNKER'S    HILL. 

GEORGE  BUNKER,  an  English  Puritan,  had  left 
England,  and  arrived  in  Charlestown  in  New 
England,  as  early  as  1634.  In  the  next  year  he  was 
made  a  freeman.  He  was  disarmed  in  November, 
1637,  as  a  supporter  of  Wheelwright;  *  but  in  the 
following  year  he  was  made  the  constable  of  Charles- 
town  ;  and  in  1639  the  General  Court  made  to  him 
a  grant  of  fifty  acres.  He  was  among  the  last 
"  batch  "  of  people  to  whom  fifty  acres  was  granted, 
on  the  plea  that  the  "  first  planters  "  were  allowed 
fifty  acres  to  each  person. 

Whether  he  took  these  special  fifty  acres  on  and 
around  the  hill  which  still  bears  his  name,  I  cannot 
tell.  But  he  is  the  man  who  owned  this  hill ;  and, 
because  he  owned  it,  it  was  and  is  "Bunker's  Hill." 
He  lived  and  died,  unconscious  that  Bunker's  Hill 
was  to  be  one  of  the  important  places  in  history, 
and  a  point  where  one  of  the  decisive  battles  of 
the  world  was  to  be  fought. 

Bunker's  Hill,  the  highest  eminence  in  the  penin- 
sula of  Charlestown,  is  so  high,  that  it  "  commands," 

*  See  Chap.  VII. 

266 


BATTLE   OF  BUNKERS  HILL.  267 

as  military  men  say,  the  northern  part  of  Boston, 
and  especially  the  northern  part  of  the  harbor  of 
Boston.  On  the  southeast  of  Boston,  the  hills  of 
what  we  call  South  Boston,  which  were  called  "  Dor- 
chester Heights  "  a  hundred  years  ago,  command  the 
southern  part  of  Boston,  and  the  whole  of  Boston 
harbor.  The  evident  military  value  of  the  Charles- 
town  and  Dorchester  Heights  was  perceived  at  once 
by  both  parties,  as  soon  as  the  "  siege  of  Boston  " 
began. 

In  a  letter  from  General  Burgoyne  of  the  English 
army,  to  Lord  Stanley,  he  says  :  — 

"  BOSTON,  June,  25, 1775. 

"  It  was  absolutely  necessary  that  we  should  make  ourselves  mas- 
ters of  these  heights"  [Bunker's  Hill  and  Dorchester  Heights],  "  and 
we  proposed  to  begin  with  Dorchester.  Every  thing  was  accordingly 
disposed.  My  two  colleagues  and  myself  (who,  by  the  by,  have  never 
differed  in  one  jot  of  military  sentiment)  had,  in  concert  with  General 
Gage,  formed  the  plan.  Howe  was  to  land  with  the  transports  on  the 
Point ;  *  Clinton,  in  the  center ;  and  I  was  to  cannonade  from  the  cause- 
way or  the  Neck ;  each  to  take  advantage  of  circumstances.  The 
operations  must  have  been  very  easy.  This  was  to  have  been  executed 
on  the  eighteenth"  [Sunday], 

Information  of  the  English  movements  and  coun- 
cils was  so  carefully  conveyed  to  the  Provincial  Con- 
gress, that  they  knew  all  this  as  well  as  Burgoyne 
did.  Here  is  their  report,  as  they  made  it  on  the 
twentieth  of  June  to  the  Congress  at  Philadelphia. 
It  is  a  good  illustration  of  that  game  of  chess  which 
is  called  war ;  and  the  reader  will  see,  that,  in  this 
case,  the  rebels  won  the  first  move.  They  say  :  — 

*By  "the  Point"  is  meant  Dorchester  Point,  where  the  Marine  Park  now  is. 


268  BATTLE   OF  BUNKERS  HILL. 

"  JUNK  20,  1775. 

"We  think  it  an  indispensable  duty  to  inform  you  that  reinforce- 
ments from  Ireland,  both  of  horse  and  foot,  being  arrived  (the  num- 
bers unknown;,  and  having  good  intelligence  that  General  Gage  was 
about  to  take  possession  of  the  advantageous  posts  in  Charlestown 
and  on  Dorchester  Heights,  the  Committee  of  Safety  advised  that  our 
troops  should  prepossess  them,  if  possible." 

The  Committee  of  Safety,  as  the  reader  must  re- 
member, took  the  place,  in  the  extemporized  govern- 
ment of  Massachusetts,  of  the  governor.  The  Com- 
mittee of  Safety  was  the  Executive.  Here  is  their 
order  for  the  occupation  of  the  hill:  — 

"  Whereas,  it  appears  of  importance  to  the  safety  of  this  colony  that 
possession  of  the  hill  called  Bunker's  Hill,  in  Charlestown,  be  securely 
kept  and  defended,  and  also,  some  one  hill  or  hills  on  Dorchester 
Neck  be  likewise  secured :  therefore,  Resolved  unanimously,  That  it 
be  recommended  to  the  council  of  war,  that  the  above-mentioned 
Bunker's  Hill  be  maintained  by  sufficient  forces  being  posted  there ; 
and,  as  the  peculiar  situation  of  Dorchester  Neck  is  unknown  to  this 
committee,  they  desire  that  the  council  of  war  take  and  pursue  such 
steps  respecting  the  same  as  to  them  shall  appear  to  be  for  the  secur- 
ity of  this  colony." 

Under  this  order  of  the  committee,  General  Ward 
directed  a  detachment  under  Colonel  Prescott  —  con- 
sisting of  Prescott's,  Frye's,  and  Bridge's  regiments 
—  and  a  fatigue-party  of  two  hundred  Connecticut 
troops,  to  parade  at  six  o'clock  in  the  evening,  with 
all  the  intrench  ing-tools,  in  the  Cambridge  camp. 
They  were  also  ordered  to  furnish  themselves  with 
packs  and  blankets,  and  with  provisions  for  twenty- 
four  hours.  Also  Captain  Samuel  Gridley's  company 
of  artillery,  of  forty-nine  men  and  two  field-pieces, 
was  ordered  to  parade.  The  Connecticut  men, 


BATTLE  OF  B'UNKEIPS  HILL.  269 

drafted  from  several  companies,  were  put  under 
the  gallant  Thomas  Knowlton,  a  captain  in  Gen- 
eral Putnam's  regiment. 

They  all  marched  from  Cambridge  at  nine  o'clock, 
and  arrived  in  an  hour  at  the  top  of  Bunker's  Hill, 
which  is  indeed  but  just  inside  of  Charlestown  Neck. 
From  the  top  of  Bunker's  Hill,  to  Copp's  Hill  in 
Boston,  where  the  English  had  a  battery,  is  almost 
exactly  one  mile  as  the  bird  flies ;  to  the  top  of 
Beacon  Hill,  as  it  then  existed,  was  a  little  less 
than  a  mile  and  a  half.  Beacon  Hill  was  then  one 
hundred  and  thirty-eight  feet  above  the  sea;  Bun- 
ker's Hill  was  one  hundred  and  ten  feet  above  the 
sea  ;  and  Copp's  Hill,  about  fifty-eight  feet.  If  the 
purpose  of  fortifying  Bunker's  Hill  were  to  attack 
the  fleet  in  the  harbor,  that  purpose  would  hardly 
be  attained  by  a  post  there.  To  a  certain  extent, 
the  vessels  could  be  sheltered  from  Bunker's  Hill 
by  Breed's  Hill,  as  it  has  since  been  called,  a  lower 
eminence,  sixty-two  feet  above  the  sea,  directly  in 
line  from  Bunker's  Hill  to  the  Copp's  Hill  batteries. 

Again:  if  the  object  was  simply  to  keep  the 
English  troops  from  seizing  the  heights,  it  was 
necessary  to  take  possession  of  both  summits,  the 
higher  and  the  lower,  at  the  same  time.  In  saying 
this,  I  speak  on  very  high  military  authority.*  Had 
the  intrenching  party  satisfied  themselves  with  in- 
trenching on  Bunker's  Hill  only,  the  English  com- 
manders would  have  immediately  formed  under  the 

The  late  Genera)  Benham,  of  the  United  Stales  Army.  He  was  on  duty  as  an  en- 
jrineer-oflicer  in  Boston  for  many  years,  and  knew  every  inch  of  the  ground  of  which  he 
spoke. 


270  BATTLE  OF  BUNKERS  HILL. 

cover  of  Breed's  Hill,  and  could  even  have  fortified 
themselves  on  the  southern  slope  of  that  hill,  in 
works  that  could  not  have  been  reached  from  bat- 
teries on  Bunker's  Hill.  The  exact  curve  fire  of  our 
times,  which  drops  shell  with  precision  on  the  heads 
of  troops  unprotected  by  bomb-proof,  was  not  one  of 
the  accomplishments  of  these  days,  nor  was  it  possi- 
ble to  the  artillery  in  possession  of  the  rebels. 

These  must  have  been  the  various  considerations 
urged  on  the  leaders  of  the  Americans  when  they 
found  themselves  on  Bunker's  Hill.  Colonel  Prescott 
called  the  field-officers  around  him,  Colonel  Gridley 
and  General  Putnam  among  others,  and  showed  them 
his  orders.  Should  he  fortify  the  summit  of  Bunker's 
Hill,  or  should  he  proceed  to  the  lower  hill  (which  at 
that  time  had  no  distinctive  name),  from  which  he 
could  more  easily  harass  the  fleet  ?  The  consultation 
was  long  and  doubtful ;  but  the  bolder  determination 
was  taken,  of  advancing  half  a  mile  nearer  to  Boston, 
and  taking  post  on  the  lower  hill.  It  is  said  that 
General  Putnam  was  present ;  and  it  is  also  said  that 
one  general  officer  opposed  the  intrenching  the  lower 
hill.  It  is  certain  that  Putnam,  through  the  day, 
was  eager  to  throw  up  works  on  the  higher  summit, 
and  was  actually  at  work  there  when  the  redoubt 
was  lost.  The  decision,  as  I  have  implied,  was  the 
correct  decision,  according  to  the  military  view  of 
the  present  day.  No  effort  should  have  been  made 
to  hold  either  post  without  the  support  of  the  other. 

Gridley,  the  colonel  of  engineers,  insisted  that  some 
decision  should  be  made  ;  and  when,  after  more  than 


BATTLE   OF  BUNKERS  HILL.  271 

an  hour,  it  was  determined  to  begin  on  the  lower 
hill,  he  marked  out  his  lines  skillfully.  At  midnight, 
six  hundred  men  were  at  work  heartily  but  silently 
on  the  redoubt  which  he  laid  out.  It  seems  to  have 
been  skillfully  planned.  It  was  eight  rods  long  on 
its  strongest  and  longest  point,  which  faced  Charles- 
town.  The  two  sides  were  nearly  as  long.  The  east- 
ern side,  towards  Boston,  commanded  an  extensive 
field,  where,  as  on  the  south  side,  the  ground  de- 
scended steeply.  The  north  side,  towards  Bunker's 
Hill,  was  left  more  open,  A  breastwork  extended 
about  one  hundred  yards  towards  the  north,  follow- 
ing the  slight  decline  of  the  hill  on  that  side.  This 
work  ended  at  or  near  a  slough,  or  swampy  place,  on 
the  north  side  of  the  hill.  Such  was  the  work  planned 
by  Gridley,  well  forwarded  before  daylight,  and  ad- 
vanced by  the  steady  labor  of  the  force  employed 
till  nearly  eleven  o'clock.  At  Putnam's  request,  the 
intrenching-tools  were  then  sent  back  to  him  at  Bun- 
ker's Hill,  where  he  was  eager  to  establish  a  strong 
enough  work  to  hold  that  hill  also.  In  a  military 
point  of  view,  as  has  been  said,  Putnam  was  un- 
doubtedly right  in  his  determination  to  do  so. 

At  four  o'clock  in  the  morning  The  Lively, 
Captain  Linzee,  an  English  vessel  which  lay  in  the 
river,  off  the  present  Navy  Yard,  opened  fire  on  the 
works.  The  sound  broke  the  silence  of  the  morning, 
and  called  the  people  of  the  North  End  to  see  the 
scene.  It  was  thus  the  place  of  Linzee  to  fire  the 
first  shot  upon  Prescott's  works.  Two  generations 
after,  Prescott's  grandson,  the  historian,  William 


272  BATTLE  OF  BUNKER'S  HILL. 

Hickling  Prescott,  married  Linzee's  granddaughter. 
The  swords  which  the  two  officers  wore  on  the  day 
of  battle  thus  came  into  his  peaceful  possession. 
While  he  lived,  they  were  crossed  in  his  library  ; 
and  after  his  death  they  were  placed  together  in  the 
Massachusetts  Historical  Library,  in  token  and  omen 
of  the  friendship  between  the  two  nations,  which  was 
to  be  sealed  and  made  certain  by  the  sacrifices  of  that 
day  and  of  the  war. 

So  soon  as  the  artillery-fire  of  The  Lively  and 
Gridley's  fire  in  reply,  from  his  field-pieces,  showed 
to  Gage  and  the  other  English  generals  what  was 
passing,  they  determined  to  attack  the  works  before 
they  were  strengthened.  Of  their  accounts,  Bur- 
goyne's  is  the  most  picturesque.  It  is  in  these 
words,  in  a  letter  to  Lord  Stanley,  which  was  pub- 
lished as  soon  as  it  arrived  in  England :  — 

"  On  the  seventeenth,  at  dawn  of  day,  we  found  the  enemy  had 
pushed  intrenchments  with  great  diligence  during  the  night,  on  the 
heights  of  Charlestown ;  and  we  evidently  saw  that  every  hour  gave 
them  fresh  strength ;  it  therefore  became  necessary  to  alter  our  plan, 
and  attack  on  that  side.  Howe,  as  second  in  command,  was  detached 
with  about  two  thousand  men,  and  landed  on  the  opposite  side  of  this 
peninsula,  covered  with  shipping,  without  opposition :  he  was  to  ad- 
vance from  thence  up  the  hill  which  was  over  Charlestown,  where  the 
strength  of  the  enemy  lay :  he  had  under  him  Brigadier-General  Pigot. 
Clinton  and  myself  took  our  stand  (for  we  had  not  any  fixed  post)  in 
a  large  battery  directly  opposite  to  Charlestown,  which  commanded  it, 
and  also  scaled  the  heights  above  it,  and  thereby  facilitating  Howe's 
attack.  Howe's  disposition  was  exceedingly  soldierlike :  in  my  opinion 
it  was  perfect.  As  his  first  arm  advanced  up  the  hill,  they  met  with 
a  thousand  impediments  from  strong  forces,  and  were  much  exposed. 
They  were  also  exceedingly  hurt  by  musketry  from  Charlestown,  though 
Clinton  and  I  did  not  perceive  it  until  Howe  sent  us  word  by  a  boat, 
and  desired  us  to  set  fire  to  the  town,  which  was  immediately  done. 
We  threw  a  parcel  of  shells,  and  the  whole  was  instantly  in  flames. 


J1ATTLE   OF  BUNKERS  HILL.  273 

Our  battery  afterwards  kept  an  incessant  fire  on  the  heights.  It  was 
seconded  by  a  number  of  frigates,  floating-batteries,  and  our  ship-of- 
the-liue.  .  .  . 

"  A  moment  of  the  day  was  critical.  Howe's  left  was  staggered  : 
two  battalions  had  been  sent  to  reinforce  them ;  but  we  perceived 
them  on  the  beach,  seeming  in  embarrassment  what  way  to  march. 
Clinton  then,  next  for  business,  took  the  part,  without  waiting  for 
orders,  to  throw  himself  into  a  boat  to  head  them  :  he  arrived  in  time 
to  be  of  service.  The  day  ended  with  glory,  and  the  success  was  most 
important,  considering  the  ascendency  it  gave  the  regular  troops; 
but  the  loss  was  uncommon  in  officers  for  the  numbers  engaged." 

Compare  this  account  with  that  made  by  order  of 
the  Provincial  Committee  of  Safety.  This  was  pre- 
pared by  Rev.  Dr.  Cooper,  Rev.  Mr.  Gardner,  and 
Rev.  Peter  Thacher  ;  the  skill  of  the  ministers  as 
men  of  literature  being  called  upon,  drolly  enough, 
for  a  report,  which  was  intended  as  a  correction  of 
Gage's  statements.  It  is  understood  that  the  report 
was  drawn  up  by  Thacher,  who  saw  the  battle  from 
the  other  side  of  Mystic  River.  Their  narrative  of 
the  action  itself  is  in  these  words  :  — 


"Between  twelve  and  one  o'clock,  a  number  of  boats  and  barges, 
filled  with  the  regular  troops  from  Boston,  were  observed  approach- 
ing towards  Charlestown :  these  troops  landed  at  a  place  called 
'  Moreton's  Point,'  *  situated  a  little  to  the  eastward  of  our  works.  This 
brigade  formed  upon  their  landing,  and  stood  thus  formed  till  a  second 
detachment  arrived  from  Boston  to  join  them  :  having  sent  out  large 
flank  guards,  they  began  a  very  slow  march  towards  our  lines.  At  this 
instant,  smoke  and  flames  were  seen  to  arise  from  the  town  of  Charles- 
town,  which  had  been  set  on  fire  by  the  enemy,  that  the  smoke  might 
cover  their  attack  upon  our  lines,  and,  perhaps,  with  a  design  to  rout 
or  destroy  one  or  two  regiments  of  provincials  who  had  been  posted 
in  that  town.  If  either  of  these  was  their  design,  they  were  dis- 
appointed; for  the  wind,  shifting  on  a  sudden,  carried  the  smoke 
another  way ;  and  the  regiments  were  already  removed. 

*  Moulton's  Point. 


274  BATTLE   OF  BUNKERS  HILL. 


"  The  provincials,  within  their  iutrenchments,  impatiently  waited 
the  attack  of  the  enemy,  and  reserved  their  fire  till  they  came  within 
ten  or  twelve  rods ;  and  then  began  a  furious  discharge  of  small-arms. 
This  fire  arrested  the  enemy,  which  they  for  some  time  returned 
without  advancing  a  step,  and  then  retreated,  in  disorder  and  with 
great  precipitation,  to  the  place  of  landing ;  and  some  of  them  sought 
refuge  even  within  their  boats.  Here  the  officers  were  observed,  by 
the  spectators  on  the  opposite  shore,  to  run  down  to  them,  using  the 
most  passionate  gestures,  and  pushing  the  men  forward  with  their 
swords.  At  length  they  were  rallied,  and  marched  up,  with  apparent 
reluctance,  toward  the  intrenchment.  The  Americans  again  reserved 
their  fire  until  the  enemy  came  within  five  or  six  rods,  and  a  second 
time  put  the  regulars  to  flight,  who  ran  in  great  confusion  towards 
their  boats. 

"  Similar  and  superior  exertions  wrere  now  necessarily  made  by  the 
officers,  which,  notwithstanding  the  men  discovered  an  almost  insuper- 
able reluctance  to  fighting  in  this  cause,  were  again  successful.  They 
formed  once  more ;  and,  having  brought  some  cannon  to  bear  in  such 
a  manner  as  to  rake  the  inside  of  the  breastwork  from  one  end  of  it  to 
the  other,  the  provincials  retreated  within  their  little  fort.  The  ministe- 
rial army  now  made  a  decisive  eftbrt.  The  fire  from  the  ships  and 
batteries,  as  well  as  from  the  cannon  in  front  of  their  army,  was  re- 
doubled. The  officers  in  the  rear  of  the  army  were  observed  to  goad 
forward  the  men  with  renewed  exertions;  and  they  attacked  the 
redoubt  on  three  sides  at  once.  The  breastwrork  on  the  outside  of  the 
fort  was  abandoned ;  the  ammunition  of  the  provincials  was  expended ; 
and  few  of  their  arms  were  fixed  with  bayonets.  Can  it,  then,  be  won- 
dered that  the  word  was  given  by  the  commander  of  the  party  to 
retreat?  But  this  he  delayed  till  the  redoubt  was  half  filled  with  regu- 
lars, and  the  provincials  had  kept  the  enemy  at  bay  some  time, 
confronting  them  with  the  butt-ends  of  their  muskets.  The  retreat  of 
this  little  handful  of  brave  men  would  have  been  effectually  cut  off,  had 
it  not  happened  that  the  flanking  part  of  the  enemy,  which  was  to 
have  come  upon  the  back  of  the  redoubt,  was  checked  by  a  party  of 
the  provincials,  who  fought  with  the  utmost  bravery,  and  kept  them 
from  advancing  further  than  the  beach.  The  engagement  of  these 
two  parties  was  kept  up  with  the  utmost  vigor;  and  it  must  be 
acknowledged  that  this  party  of  the  ministerial  troops  evidenced  a  cour- 
age worthy  a  better  cause.  All  their  efforts,  however,  were  insufficient 
to  compel  the  provincials  to  retreat  till  their  main  body  had  left  the 
hill.  Perceiving  this  was  done,  they  then  gave  ground,  but  with  more 
regularity  than  could  be  expected  of  troops  who  had  no  longer  been 
under  discipline,  and  many  of  whom  had  never  before  seen  an 
engagement." 


BATTLE   OF  BUNKERS  HILL.  275 

The  reader  who  did  not  know  that  these  two  nar- 
ratives were  written,  one  by  General  Burgoyne,  who 
saw  the  action  from  Copp's  Hill  in  Boston,  and  the 
other  by  Peter  Thacher  the  minister  who  saw  it 
from  exactly  the  opposite  side  of  the  field,  and  with 
exactly  opposite  prejudices,  would  never  know  that 
the  same  battle  was  described.  It  has  been  the 
business  of  every  historian  since  to  collect  the  detail 
which  shall  fill  up  the  narrative.  This  is  to  a  great 
extent  done  ;  and  the  successive  stages  of  the  battle 
may  now  be  wrought  out  intelligibly. 

The  traditional  three  attacks  unquestionably  took 
place,  although  neither  Burgoyne  nor  Gage  alludes 
to  them.  The  closing  words  of  Peter  Thacher's 
account  allude  to  a  feature  in  the  action  not  so  gen- 
erally understood  —  the  almost  independent  position 
of  the  American  left  wing. 

While  General  Pigot  with  the  English  left  was 
assailing  the  redoubt  in  the  first  of  the  three  attacks, 
General  Howe  led  his  right  wing  along  the  shore  of 
Mystic  River,  hoping  to  turn  the  American  lines. 
To  prevent  this,  Colonel  Prescott  had  sent  two  field- 
pieces  with  Colonel  Knowlton  and  the  Connecticut 
troops  down  the  hill  to  the  river.  Knowlton  was  the 
officer  on  whom  Washington  passed  so  noble  a  eulo- 
gium  the  next  year  when  he  was  killed.  He  was 
killed  jn  the  region  now  comprised  in  the  Central 
Park  of  New  York  ;  and  Connecticut  must  see  to  it, 
that  his  monument  is  added  to  that  of  other  heroes 
there.  Knowlton  had  stationed  himself  near  the 
southern  front  of  Bunker's  Hill  proper,  behind  a  fence, 


276  BATTLE   OF  BUNKERS  HILL. 

which  was  stone  below,  with  two  rails  of  wood  above. 
He  strengthened  this  line  by  a  parallel  line  of  fence, 
filling  in  between  with  grass.     While  he  was  thus 
engaged,  he  was  reinforced  by  Stark. 
Stark' s  report  is  wretchedly  meager  :  — 

' '  Upon  which  I  was  required  by  the  general  to  send  a  party,  con- 
sisting of  two  hundred  men,  with  officers,  to  their  assistance;  which 
order  I  readily  obeyed,  and  appointed  and  sent  Colonel  Wyraan,  com- 
mander of  the  same.  And  about  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  express 
orders  came  for  the  whole  of  my  regiment  to  proceed  to  Charlestown 
to  oppose  the  enemy,  who  were  landing  on  Charlestown  Point. 
Accordingly  we  proceeded ;  and  the  battle  soon  came  on,  in  which  a 
number  of  officers  belonging  to  my  regiment  were  killed,  and  many 
privates  killed  and  wounded." 

From  other  accounts  we  have  more  detail  of 
the  action  here.  Callender's  American  field-pieces 
opened  on  Howe's  party  with  great  effect.  Knowl- 
ton  bade  his  men  hold  their  fire  till  the  enemy  came 
within  fifteen  rods,  and  they  did  so.  When  the  word 
was  given,  the  result  was  horrible  to  see  or  to  tell. 
The  companies  were  terribly  cut  up,  wavered,  broke 
and  retreated,  as,  at  nearly  the  same  time,  Pigot's 
did  before  the  redoubt,  on  the  other  wing  of  Howe's 
advance. 

In  the  second  attack  on  the  redoubt,  Howe  directed 
his  artillery  to  be  served  with  grape.  They  had  no 
proper  balls,  an  incident  frequently  referred  to.  The 
artillery  moved  nearly  up  to  the  line  of  the  breast- 
work in  a  narrow  road,  parallel  with  the  Mystic,  on 
the  northern  slope  of  Breed's  Hill.  The  object  was 
to  rake  the  redoubt,  and  thus  open  a  way  for  the  in- 
fantrv.  A  second  time  Howe  was  in  front  of  Stark 


BATTLE   OF  J1UNKE2VS  HILL.  21T 

and  Knowlton.  Both  there  and  at  the  redoubt,  the 
American  fire  was  held  as  before,  even  to  a  shorter 
range.  At  both  points  the  English  gave  way.  This 
was  the  period  when  the  English  were  reinforced 
from  Boston,  and  when  Clinton  joined  them  as  related 
by  Burgoyne. 

In  the  third  attack  the  English  artillery  gained  its 
position,  so  that  it  could  enfilade  the  breastwork. 
The  defenders  of  the  breastwork  took  refuge  in  the 
redoubt.  Prescott  did  not  waver.  Most  of  his  men 
had  but  one  round  of  ammunition,  and  few  had  more 
than  three ;  but  he  bade  them  hold  their  fire  as  before, 
and  they  did  till  their  enemy  was  within  twenty 
yards.  The  English  were  now  advancing  in  column, 
having  been  taught  their  terrible  lesson  by  the  former 
experiences.  The  column  wavered  under  Prescott's 
fire,  but  rushed  on  with  the  bayonet ;  and  Clinton's 
and  Pigot's  men,  on  the  southern  and  eastern  sides, 
reached  the  shelter  of  its  walls.  Prescott  bade  the 
men  who  had  no  bayonets  retire  to  the  rear  of  the 
redoubt,  and  fire  on  the  enemy  as  they  mounted.  A 
fine  fellow  climbed  the  southern  side,  cried  "  The 
day  is  ours  1"  and  fell.  The  whole  front  rank  shared 
his  fate.  But  the  game  was  played.  These  were  the 
last  shots.  The  Englishmen  poured  over  the  parapet  -r 
and  Prescott  gave  his  unwilling  order  to  retreat. 

He  always  said  that  even  without  powder  (and  he 
had  none),  he  could  have  held  the  hill,  had  his  men 
had  bayonets.  The  following  very  curious  letter  isr 
I  believe,  the  first  allusion  to  the  engagement  in  the 
records  of  the  Provincial  Congress,  after  it  occurred  : 


278  BATTLE  OF  BUNKERS  HILL. 

CAMBRIDGE,  June  19,  1775. 

It  is  requested  that  the  troops  may  be  supplied  also  with  a  large 
number  of  spears  or  lances  for  defending  the  breastworks.  In  the  late 
action,  spears  might  have  saved  the  intrenchments.  By  order  of  the 
general.  JOSEPH  WARD,  Secretary. 

Aii  order  was  actually  given  for  the  manufacture 
of  two  thousand  of  these  spears. 

The  redoubt  was  flanked  on  both  sides  ;  but  all 
parties  were  too  close  for  the  English  to  fire,  even  if 
their  pieces  were  charged,  as  they  could  hardly  have 
been.  Still  Warren  was  killed  here ;  Gridley  was 
wounded;  and  the  Americans  lost  more  men  than  at 
any  period  of  the  battle. 

Meanwhile  our  friends  at  the  rail-fence,  the  left 
wing  of  the  Americans,  held  their  own.  When 
Prescott's  disorganized  command  had  passed  them, 
they  covered  his  retreat,  and  retired  in  good  order. 

Now  was  the  moment  which  Putnam  had  foreseen, 
for  which  he  had  been  trying  to  fortify  the  higher 
hill.  Pomeroy  of  Northampton  joined  him  in  trying 
to  rally  the  retreating  forces  there.  But  it  was  not 
possible.  The  whole  body  retired  over  the  Neck, 
and  met  the  reinforcements  which  had  been  ordered 
itoo  late  to  their  relief.  One  piece  of  cannon  at  the 
Neck  opened  on  the  enemy,  and  covered  the  retreat. 

The  following  report  is  the  brief  account  which 
the  Massachusetts  Congress  sent  to  the  Congress  in 
Philadelphia.  It  is  their  report  of  June  20  ;  and 
this  passage  follows  that  which  already  has  been 
oited  :  — 

"  Accordingly,  on  Friday  evening,  the  16th  inst.,  this  was  effected 
by  about  twelve  hundred  men.  About  daylight,  on  Saturday  morning, 


BATTLE   OF  BUNKER'S   HILL.  279 


their  line  of  circumvallation,  on  a  small  hill  south  of  Bunker's  Hill,  in 
Charlestown,  was  closed :  at  this  time,  The  Lively,  man-of-war, 
began  to  tire  upon  them.  A  number  of  our  enemy's  ships,  tenders, 
cutters,  scows,  or  floating-batteries,  soon  came  up,  from  all  which  tl>  > 
lire  was  general  by  twelve  o'clock.  About  two  the  enemy  began  to 
land  at  a  point  which  leads  out  from  Noddle's  Island,  and  immediately 
marched  up  to  our  intrenchments,  from  which  they  were  twice  repulsed, 
but,  in  the  third  attack,  forced  them.  Our  forces  which  were  in  the 
lines,  as  well  as  those  sent  for  their  support,  were  greatly  annoyed  on 
every  side  by  balls  and  bombs  from  Copp's  Hill,  the  ships,  scows,  etc. 
At  this  time  the  buildings  in  Charlestown  appeared  in  flames  in  almost 
every  quarter,  kindled  by  hot  balls,  and  is  since  laid  in  ashes.  Though 
this  scene  was  almost  horrible,  and  altogether  new  to  most  of  our 
men,  yet  many  stood  and  received  wounds  by  swords  and  bayonets,  be- 
fore they  quitted  their  lines.  At  five  o'clock  the  enemy  were  in  full 
possession  of  all  the  posts  within  the  isthmus. 

"  The  number  of  killed  and  wounded  on  our  side  is  not  known,  but 
supposed  by  some  to  be  abont  sixty  or  seventy,  and  by  some  consider- 
ably above  that  number.  Our  most  worthy  friend  and  president,  Dr. 
Warren,  lately  elected  a  major-general,  is  among  them.  This  loss  we 
feel  most  sensibly.  .  .  .  The  loss  of  the  enemy  is  doubtless  great.  By 
an  anonymous  letter  from  Boston,  we  are  told  that  they  exult  much  in 
having  gained  the  ground,  though  their  killed  and  wounded  are  owned 
abont  one  thousand  ;  but  this  account  exceeds  every  other  estimation." 

Prescott  reported  at  headquarters,  indignant  that 
he  had  not  been  better  supported,  and  offered  to 
retake  the  hills  if  he  might  have  fifteen  hundred 
men  ;  but  Ward,  who  was  at  least  prudent,  declined. 

General  Gage,  on  the  other  side,  knew  very  well 
at  what  terrible  cost  his  victory  had  been  won. 
Here  is  his  letter  to  Lord  Dartmouth  : 

"BOSTON,  June  25,  1775. 

"  The  success,  of  which  I  send  your  lordship  an  account  by  the 
present  opportunity,  was  very  necessary  in  our  present  situation;  and 
I  wish  most  sincerely  that  it  had  not  cost  us  so  dear.  The  number  of 
killed  and  wounded  is  greater  than  onr  forces  can  afford  to  lose.  The 
officers  who  were  obliged  to  exert  themselves  have  suffered  very  much; 
and  we  have  lost  some  extremely  good  officers.  The  trials  we  have 
had  show  the  rebels  are  not  the  despicable  rabble,  too  many  have  sup- 


L>80  BATTLE   OF  BUNKERS  HILL. 


posed  them  to  be ;  and  I  find  it  owing  to  a  military  spirit  encouraged 
among  them  for  a  few  years  past,  joined  with  an  uncommon  degree  of 
zeal  and  enthusiasm,  that  they  are  otherwise." 


Horace«Walpole  had  written,  July  6,  before  they 
had  the  news  :  — 


"  The  general  complexion  is  war.  All  advices  speak  the  Americans 
determined ;  and  report  says  the  government  here  intends  to  pursue 
the  same  plan.  I  told  you  at  first  I  thought  you  and  I  should  not  see 
the  end  of  this  breach;  and,  if  we  do  not,  I  know  not  what  posterity 
will  see  —  the  ruin  of  both  countries,  at  least  of  this.  Can  we  support 
the  loss  of  America,  or  a  long  war? 

"  There  is  a  black  cloud  nearer.  The  livery  of  London  have  begun 
a  quarrel  with  the  king,  and  have  actually  proclaimed  war  on  his  min- 
isters, as  you  will  see  by  the  papers.  I  do  not  take  panic;  but,  if  any 
blow  should  happen  from  America,  the  mob  of  London  is  a  formidable 
foe  on  a  sudden.  A  minister  may  be  executed  before  he  is  impeached ; 
and  considering  the  number  of  American  merchants  in  the  city,  and  of 
those  who  have  connections  in  America,  riots  may  be  raised :  but  I 
hate  to  prophesy.  I  have  always  augured  ill  of  this  quarrel,  and  washed 
my  hands  of  it." 


After  the  dispatches  came,  he  wrote  :  — 


"  Aug.  3.  —  In  spite  of  all  my  modesty,  I  cannot  help  thinking  I  have 
a  little  something  of  the  prophet  about  me.  At  least,  we  have  not  con- 
quered America  yet.  I  did  not  send  you  immediate  word  of  the  victory 
at  Boston,  because  the  success  not  only  seemed  very  equivocal,  but  be- 
cause the  conquerors  lost  three  to  one  more  than  the  vanquished.  The 
last  do  not  pique  themselves  upon  modern  good  breeding,  but  level  only 
at  the  officers,  of  whom  they  have  slain  a  vast  number.  We  are  a  little 
disappointed,  indeed,  at  their  fighting  at  all,  which  was  not  in  our  cal- 
culation. We  knew  we  could  conquer  America  in  Germany,  and  I  doubt 
had  better  have  gone  thither  now  for  that  purpose,  as  it  does  notappear 
hitherto  to  be  quite  so  feasible  in  America  itself.  However,  we  are  de- 
termined to  know  the  worst,  and  are  sending  away  all  the  men  and  am- 
munition we  can  muster.  The  Congress,  not  asleep  neither,  have 
appointed  a  generalissimo,  Washington,  allowed  a  very  able  officer, 
who  distinguished  himself  in  the  last  war." 


BATTLE   OF  BUNKERS  HILL.  281 

All  accounts  agree  in  describing  the  terrible  dis- 
may felt  in  Boston  as  the  wounded  were  brought 
over  from  the  field.  A  letter-  published  by  Mr. 
Drake  says  that  the  loyalists  sent  down  their  car- 
riages, chaises,  and  even  hand-barrows  to  bring  them 
up  from  the  boats ;  and  old  people  remember  hear- 
ing their  mothers  tell  of  blood  .dropping  from  the 
carts  upon  the  pavement.  General  Howe  was  said 
to  have  said,  "  They  may  talk  of  their  Mindens  and 
their  Fontenoys  ;  but  there  was  no  such  fire  there  as 
here."  In  truth,  the  French  at  Minden  lost  seven 
thousand  men  out  of  fifty  thousand.  Howe  lost  at 
Bunker's  Hill  one  thousand  and  fifty-four  men  from 
a  force  which  is  variously  stated  as  two  thousand, 
three  thousand  and  four  thousand.  In  the  history 
of  the  Fifty-second  Regiment,  the  statement  is  made, 
that  one  of  their  light  companies,  led  by  Howe  him- 
self against  Stark  and  Knowlton,  had  every  man 
either  killed  or  wounded. 

Howe  escaped  without  hurt ;  but  it  is  remembered 
that  his  white  silk  stockings  were  bloody  from  the 
blood  which  men  had  left  on  the  long  grass  through 
which  he  had  to  lead  his  troops.  He  quite  fulfilled 
the  promise  he  made  in  the  speech  which  he  addressed 
to  his  own  men  before  the  assault :  "  I  shall  not  de- 
sire one  of  you  to  go  a  step  farther  than  1  shall  go 
myself  at  your  head." 

It  should  be  remembered  that,  from  1762  to  1775, 
the  English  army  had  not  been  under  fire.  To  most 
of  the  privates,  war  was  probably  as  new  as  to  their 
enemy.  This  may  account  for  the  exposure  of  the 


282  BATTLE  OF  BUNKERS  HILL. 

officers.  One  hundred  and  fifty-seven  officers  were 
killed  and  wounded  in  a  total  loss  of  one  thousand 
and  fifty-four. 

The  loss  of  the  Americans  was  one  hundred  and 
forty  killed,  two  hundred  and  seventy-one  wounded  ; 
and  they  lost  thirty  prisoners.  Their  force  engaged 
was  about  fifteen  hundred ;  .but  at  the  larger  Bunker's 
Hill,  and  on  the  way  there,  they  must  have  had,  not 
under  fire,  a  thousand  more  men. 

For  a  long  time,  the  battle  of  Bunker's  Hill  was 
spoken  of  with  a  certain  indignation  in  the  Provin- 
cial circles,  as  if  there  had  been  some  misbehavior 
on  the  part  of  some  one  engaged.  "  Some  one  had 
blundered."  There  was  a  series  of  court-martials 
after  it,  which  lasted  till  after  Washington  took  the 
command.  But  history  has  set  all  this  right.  The 
English  Government  recalled  Gage  as  soon  as  they 
received  his  dispatches,  and  we  now  know  that 
Bunker  Hill  was  the  decisive  battle  of  the  war.  For 
the  impression  then  made  on  Howe  and  Clinton,  who 
were  to  be  Gage's  successors,  governed  them  through 
the  war.  They  never  again  led  men  against  troops 
who  were  intrenched.  In  this  lesson  Bunker  Hill 
may  be  said  to  have  determined  that  cautious  strat- 
egy of  theirs  which  marked  the  whole  conflict.  We 
now  know  that  the  English  officers  complained  that 
their  privates  misbehaved.  But  when  one  reads  that 
every  man  in  one  company  was  killed  or  wounded, 
he  does  not  ask  many  questions  as  to  the  courage  of 
the  survivors. 


CHAPTER   XVIII. 

MASSACHUSETTS    AT    SEA. 

IT  is  hard  for  the  New  Englander  of  to-day  to  re- 
member that  his  ancestors  of  a  century  and  a 
half  ago  generally  drew  their  living  from  the  sea. 
But  in  truth  the  codfish  is  the  totem  or  crest  of 
Massachusetts.  The  reader  knows  how  necessary 
for  physical  life  were  the  fisheries  to  the  settlers 
in  the  beginning.  And  he  has  not  wisely  read  these 
chapters  if  he  has  not  seen  that  these  descendants 
of  Norsemen  who  had  the  blood  of  Vikings  in  their 
veins,  won  their  victories  because  they  were  born 
masters  of  the  sea.  The  same  blood  is  in  their 
veins  to-day :  but,  alas !  it  shows  itself  chiefly  as 
they  build  the  fastest  yachts  for  their  amusement 
and  challenge  the  world  to  sail  with  them  on 
summer  seas. 

When  the  war  of  the  Revolution  began,  it  was  not 
so.  It  would  be  safe  to  say  that  of  the  young  men 
of  Massachusetts  of  age  for  war,  one  half  were  as 
much  at  home  upon  the  sea  as  upon  the  land.  And 
when  the  army  formed  itself  around  Boston,  they 
were  as  ready  for  adventures  upon  the  water  as  they 
were  for  camps  or  garrisons.  Hardly  a  fortnight 
after  the  battle  of  Lexington  the  people  of  New 

283 


284  MASSACHUSETTS  AT  SEA. 

Bedford  and  Dartmouth  fitted  out  an  armed  vessel 
which  went  in  pursuit  of  a  prize  which  had  been 
taken  in  Buzzard's  Bay  by  the  Falcon,  a  British 
sloop  of  war.  In  the  province  of  Maine,  the  people 
of  Machias  seized  the  Margaretta,  a  king's  sloop  and 
two  other  vessels.  They  put  her  armament  on  board 
another  vessel,  and  the  Massachusetts  Government 
placed  her  under  the  command  of  O'Brien,  who  thus 
became  the  first  naval  officer  in  the  American  navy. 
In  September  Washington  issued  commissions  giving 
power  to  cut  off  the  supply  vessels  of  the  English, 
and  the  state  government  at  once  commissioned 
six  vessels  —  the  Lynch,  the  Franklin,  the  Lee,  the 
Washington,  the  Harrison  and  the  Warren  —  on  this 
business.  The  last  five  of  these  names  are  still  re- 
membered. But  young  readers  may  be  excused  if 
they  do  not  know  why  the  first  vessel  in  the  Ameri- 
can navy  should  have  been  named  the  Lynch.  The 
name  was  given  in  honor  of  Thomas  Lynch,  of  South 
Carolina.  He  was  the  youngest  signer  of  the  Declar- 
ation of  Independence.  He  is  but  little  known  in  our 
history,  because  he  was  lost  at  sea  in  the  year  1779. 
These  little  cruisers  were  generally  commanded 
by  brave  men  and  manned  by  fearless  crews.  Wash- 
ington complains  somewhere  that  the  officers  always 
quarreled  on  shore ;  but  at  sea  they  were  apt  to  do 
their  duty.  In  the  rashest  way  they  would  dash  out 
from  Marblehead  and  Cape  Ann,  and  just  outside  the 
Bay,  would  capture  vessels  which  were  coming  fear- 
lessly into  port  with  supplies  for  the  English.  Manly 
and  Mugford,  two  of  these  commanders,  are  always 


MASSACHUSETTS  AT  SEA.  285 

to  be  remembered.  This  chapter  might  well  be  filled 
with  the  pathetic  story  of  the  way  in  which  Mugford 
lost  his  life.  His  little  vessel  had  gone  ashore,  and 
had  to  beat  off  the  boats  of  the  British  squadron  as 
they  waited  for  the  slow  tide  to  rise. 

To  such  men  as  these,  used  to  seafaring  life  in 
all  its  forms,  the  State  of  Massachusetts  issued  pri- 
vateers commissions.  This  was  then  a  perfectly 
legitimate  method  of  warfare.  In  the  advance  of 
civilization  it  is  now  somewhat  frowned  upon,  as 
adding  to  the  lawlessness  of  war.  But  it  is  very 
difficult  to  draw  the  line  between  the  acts  of  a 
cruiser  commissioned  like  the  Alabama,  and  the  acts 
of  a  privateer,  receiving  a  commission  from  the  same 
Government. 

In  those  days  no  such  questions  of  conscience  were 
asked.  All  other  commerce  was  endangered  by  the 
English  cruisers.  It  was  hard  for  a  coaster  even  to 
run  along  the  shore  without  being  snapped  up  by 
one  of  their  watchful  commanders.  Here  were  there- 
fore all  the  men,  who  would  have  been  engaged  in 
the  whale  fishery  or  the  cod  fishery  or  in  commerce 
with  the  West  Indies,  with  Europe  or  the  rest  of 
the  world,  ready  to  go  out  as  privateersmen  under 
a,ny  popular  commander.  Under  John  Adams's  pres- 
sure, Congress  created  a  navy  before  the  Declaration 
of  Independence.  As  the  war  went  on,  the  new  State 
of  Massachusetts  maintained  its  own  navy,  building 
or  buying  its  ships.  It  should  be  remembered  that 
at  this  time  the  building  of  ships  for  sale  abroad 
was  a  very  important  industry.  No  liner  vessels 


286  MASSACHUSETTS  AT  SEA. 

were  built  in  the  world.  The  names  given  to  these 
vessels  show  the  spirit  of  the  time.  The  Margaretta, 
after  her  capture,  became  the  Liberty.  The  Andrew 
Doria  recalled  the  name  of  the  Venetian  Doge.  There 
was  the  Oliver ;  there  was  the  Cromwell ;  there  were 
the  Oliver  Cromwell  and  the  Protector.  The  reader 
will  come  to  some  passages  from  the  log  of  the 
Tyrannicide.  All  these  names  were  used,  that  kings 
might  remember  "tha;t  there  was  a  crick  in  their 
necks  also." 

The  method  of  fitting  out  a  privateer  was  this : 
some  man  of  enterprise  or  reputation  obtained  from 
the  Government  a  commission  which  gave  him  a  right 
to  arm  his  vessel  the  Cromwell  or  the  Sally  as  a 
privateer,  and' to  ship  a  crew.  The  crew  once  shipped 
were  under  his  command,  as  they  would  have  been 
in  a  vessel  of  the  State.  But  it  was  generally  sup- 
posed that  the  discipline  of  a  privateer  was  not  so 
severe  as  that  of  the  national  or  State  vessels.  The 
crew  enlisted  under  an  agreement  that  the  profits  of 
the  adventure  were  to  be  divided  among  them. 
Each  man  had  what  is  called  his  "lay,"  varying 
according  to  the  importance  of  the  service  he  ren- 
dered. To  this  arrangement  they  were  all  accus- 
tomed. For  all  fishing  vessels  and  all  whalers  went 
out  under  a  similar  communistic  arrangement,  a» 
indeed  they  do  to  this  day.  The  vessel  went  to  sea^ 
and  sought  the  pathways  of  English  commerce.  So 
enterprising  were  they,  and-  so  successful,  that  it 
seems  certain  that  between  that  first  capture  of  the 
Margaretta  and  the  end  of  the  war,  more  than  six 


MASSACHUSETTS  AT  SEA.  287 

hundred  prizes  were  taken  every  year.  Once  and 
again  these  bold  men  pounced  on  almost  all  the  fleet 
of  traders  between  England  and  Africa.  The  rates 
of  insurance  in  London  were  so  high  that  maritime 
commerce  in  every  direction  was  crippled.  "  The 
Yankee  Privateers  "  cruised  in  sight  of  the  English 
headlands,  and  even  before  France  made  war  with 
England,  the  crossing  of  the  English  Channel  was 
regarded  as  a  dangerous  adventure. 

Such  losses  became  so  considerable  as  to  make  a 
national  calamity.  The  pressure  they  made  upon 
public  opinion  in  England  made  the  war  as  unpopular 
in  the  end  as  it  had  been  popular  in  the  beginning. 
The  commercial  interest  in  England  was  too  large  an 
element  of  public  opinion  to  be  slighted.  Before 
1781  the  merchants  of  England  were  thoroughly  sick 
of  constant  losses  and  of  high  insurance.  And  when 
the  news  of  the  last  blow  came,  and  the  word  that 
Cornwallis  had  surrendered,  it  came  upon  a  public  in 
England  which  was  heartily  tired  of  the  struggle. 

Strictly  speaking,  therefore,  the  independence  of 
the  nation  was  won  upon  the  sea  rather  than  upon 
the  land.  This  truth  should  be  impressed  in  the 
"•  Story  of  Massachusetts,"  because  in  such  success, 
Massachusetts  had  so  much  to  do.  Probably  in  every 
year  of  the  war,  Massachusetts  had  more  men  at 
sea  against  the  enemy  than  Washington  had  on  land 
in  the  whole  Continental  army.  It  seems  quite  clear 
that,  as  the  war  went  on,  the  nation  had  more  men 
at  sea  against  the  enemy,  than  the  total  force  of 
soldiers  in  the  Continental  army  and  the  militia. 


288  MASSACHUSETTS  AT  SEA. 

The  navy  of  the  State  itself  amounted  to  more 
than  forty  vessels,  between  the  beginning  and  the 
end,  though  there  was  no  period  when  nearly  so  large 
a  force  was  in  commission.  Some  of  the  vessels 
which  make  up  this  number  were  only  purchased  by 
the  State,  or  perhaps  chartered  for  a  single  voyage. 

The  tendency  of  the  writers  of  our  history  has 
been  to  describe  in  detail  the  victories  and  the  re- 
verses on  the  land;  but  the  history  of  the  naval 
warfare  has  been  and  is  buried,  in  old  log-books  or 
in  the  journals  of  young  men  who  are  joining  in  this- 
wide  system  of  adventure.  If  the  reader  will  recollect 
what  has  been  said,  that  on  an  average,  two  prizes  a, 
day  were  taken  for  more  than  six  years,  and  if  it  is 
remembered  that  the  State  of  Massachusetts  sent  out 
fully  three  quarters  of  the  seamen  engaged  in  such 
adventure,  he  will  understand  how  much,  of  what  is 
essential  to  history,  is  so  hidden  away  in  such  records. 
Some  extracts  from  such  papers  will  give  an  idea  of 
the  way  in  which  such  young  men  won  the  victories- 
of  the  seas. 


EXTRACTS    FROM   MANUSCRIPT    JOURNAL   OF    CAPTAIN    J. 
FISH. 

JOURNAL  OF  THE  SLOOP  TYRANNICIDE'S  CRUISE,  MYSELF  COMMANDER. 

"  Remarks  on  Tuesday,  the  12th  of  June,  1776. —  At  nine  in  the  morning, 
Captain  Derby  gave  me  notice  of  a  ship  to  the  southward  of  Marblehead, 
standing  up  toward  Boston.  Went  on  board,  weighed  anchor,  stood 
to  the  southward,  and  saw  the  ship  toward  Boston.  Gave  chase  after 
her.  At  three  in  the  afternoon  fired  a  shot  for  her  to  bear  down.  Saw 
the  Continental  schooner  coming  out  of  Boston.  At  half -past  three 
fired  a  shot  at  the  ship.  The  schooner  and  a  brig  from  Boston  fired  at 
the  ship.  We  fired  a  second  shot  at  her;  down  came  her  colors.  Sent 


MASSACHUSETTS  AT  SEA.  289 

the  first  lieutenant  and  six  men  on  board.  She  is  the  ship  Lord  Howe, 
Kobert  Park  master,' from  Glasgow,  one  hundred  officers  and  soldiers- 
on  board,  belonging  to  the  seventy-first  regiment.  Spoke  with  Captain 
Tucker  in  one  of  the  Continental  schooners;  got  a  pilot  from  him  to 
carry  us  into  Boston.  He  ran  the  sloop  on  shore  twice,  but  she 
received  no  damage.  Thus  ends  this  day." 

There  exists,  in  manuscript,  can  unpublished  autobi- 
ography of  Thomas  Ward  of  Salem.  This  young 
man,  at  fifteen  years  of  age,  determined  to  support 
his  mother,  brothers  and  sisters,  enlisted  in  a  Marble- 
head  privateer.  From  that  time,  in  1776,  till  the 
war  ended,  he  was  afloat,  or  in  an  English  prison,  or 
enjoying  a  brief  holiday  at  home  between  two 
voyages.  Three  times  he  was  taken  prisoner,  and 
his  experience  in  New  York  Harbor,  in  Quebec,  and 
at  Forton  in  England,  make  very  interesting  parts  of 
his  narrative.  His  record  of  the  success  at  sea  of 
these  Vikings  of  Salem  and  Marblehead  with  whom 
he  sailed,  reads  like  a  chapter  from  the  history  of 
some  floating  Amadis  of  Gaul.  Such  records  belong 
in  the  annals  of  adventure  with  the  old  tales  of 
chivalry. 

The  State  of  Massachusetts,  sooner  or  later,  seems 
to  have  commissioned  six  hundred  privateers.  1 
think  the  number  was  much  larger. 

Of  the  naval  commanders  of  that  day  John  Forster 
Williams  was  the  most  popular  captain.  He  had 
fought  some  battles  with  matchless  intrepidity,  and 
until  the  year  1814  was  highly  honored  in  Boston  as 
one  of  the  heroes  of  the  Revolution.  The  battle 
which  he  fought  in  the  Protector,  in  which  he  took 
the  Admiral  Duff,  was  one  of  the  well-contested 


290  MASSACHUSETTS  AT  SEA. 

naval  actions  of  the  war,  and  when  he  brought  his 
prize  into  port  he  was  received  with  all  the  honors 
which  the  little  town  could  give  him. 

The  war  at  sea  assumed  enormous  proportions 
before  it  was  over.  An  official  report  made  by  John 
Adams,  July  6,  1780,  shows  that  at  that  time  the 
French  navy  had  taken  or  destroyed  twenty-three 
English  war-ships,  while  they  had  lost  to  the  English 
from  their  own  navy  fifteen  in  the  same  time.  Eng- 
land had  taken  or  destroyed  twenty-five  vessels  of 
war  belonging  to  Congress,  and  had  destroyed  a  fleet 
of  privateers  and  State  cruisers  consisting  of  seven- 
teen vessels,  sent  by  Massachusetts  in  to  the  Penobscot. 
Congress  had  taken  or  destroyed  seven  English  ships 
of  war.  Congress  had  lost  eleven  by  shipwreck  or 
other  accident.  There  is  a  loss  to  England  of  forty- 
two  ships  of  war  of  all  grades  in  four  years. 

Almon's  Memorial  gives  for  a  series  of  years  the 
losses  of  the  mercantile  fleet  of  England.  It  amounted 
in  some  years  to  more  than  six  hundred  vessels,  of 
which  the  names  are  given,  and,  naturally,  many 
vessels  are  omitted  in  such  a  statement. 

It  should  be  remembered  that  the  number  of  sea- 
men engaged  in  the  privateer  fleet  in  the  Massachu- 
setts State  cruisers  and  in  those  of  the  nation 
amounted  in  every  year  to  forty  or  fifty  thousand 
men.  This  is  an  enormous  proportion  of  the  people 
of  a  State  which  had  not  more  than  four  hundred 
thousand  inhabitants.  If  it  is  also  remembered  that 
on  the  average  one  or  two  prizes  were  brought  in 
every  day  into  one  or  another  of  the  seaports  of  the 


MASSACHUSETTS  AT  SEA.  291 

State,  it  will  be  easy  to  see  how  constant  and 
how  intense  was  the  excitement  arising  from  the 
conditions  of  the  war.  In  a  single  voyage  of 
Abraham  Whipple,  he  disguised  his  ship  as  a  mer- 
chantman and  made  her  one  of  a  fleet  whicli  an 
English  squadron  was  convoying  from  the  West 
Indies  to  England. 

Every  night,  as  soon  as  it  was  dark,  he  captured  one 
of  his  unsuspecting  neighbors.  In  this  way  he  took 
ten  prizes  successively  in  ten  nights,  and  his  prize 
crews  brought  eight  of  them  into  port  successfully. 
These  eight  sold  for  more  than  a  million  dollars, 
which  was  divided  as  prize  money  among  his  crew. 
Such  a  success  was  reported  far  and  wide,  and  very 
likely  with  exaggeration ;  and  would  do  much  to 
blot  out  the  memory  of  frequent  failure. 

Some  of  the  commanders  most  successful  in  this 
warfare  were  John  Foster  Williams  and  Andrew 
Hallett. 

From  the  archives  of  Massachusetts  I  copy  the 
following  spirited  letter  from  Hallet,  describing' one 
of  his  own  successes  : 

In  LATITUDE  28°  30'  N.     LONGITUDE  (58°  25'  W.       \ 
AT  SKA,  on  board  the  Tyrannicide,  March  31,  1779.  f 

I  have  the  pleasure  of  sending  this  to  you  by  Mr.  John  Blanch,  who 
goes  prize  master  to  the  prize,  the  privateer  brig  Revenge,  lately  com- 
manded by  Captain  Robert  Fendall,  belonging  to  Granada,  but  last  of 
Jamaica,  mounting  fourteen  carriage  guns,  six  and  four  pounds  — 
four  swivels  and  two  cohorns,  and  sixty  able-bodied  men,  which  ship 
I  took  after  a  very  sharp  and  bloody  engagement,  in  which  they  had 
eight  men  killed  and  thirteen  wounded—  the  veesel  cut  very  much  to 
pieces  by  my  shot,  so  that  they  had  no  command  of  her  at  all.  Among 
the  killed  was  the  lieutenant  and  one  quartermaster.  Among  the 


292  MASSACHUSETTS  AT  SEA. 

wounded  is  the  capl  ain  and  the  second  lieutenant.  I  captured  her  as 
below. 

On  the  twenty-ninth  instant  at  4  p.  M.  ,  I  made  her  out  about  four 
leagues  to  windward,  coming  down  on  us;  upon  which  I  cleared  ship 
and  got  all  hands  to  quarter,  ready  for  an  engagement,  and  stood  close 
upon  the  wind,  waiting  for  her.  About  half-past  five  p  M.  she  came 
up  with  me  and  hailed  me,  and  asked  me  where  I  was  from.  I  told 
them  that  I  was  from  Boston,  and  asked  them  where  they  were  from. 
They  said  from  Jamaica  and  that  they  were  a  British  cruiser.  I 
immediately  told  them  that  I  was  an  American  cruiser — upon  which 
they  ordered  me  to  strike  —  and  seeing  that  I  did  not  intend  to  gratify 
their  desires,  they  ranged  up  under  my  lee,  and  gave  me  a  broadside. 
I  immediately  returned  the  compliment,  and  then,  dropping  astern,  I 
got  under  their  lee  and  then  poured  in  our  broadsides  into  her  from 
below  and  out  of  the  tops,  so  fast  and  so  well  directed  that  in  an  hour 
and  a  quarter  we  dismounted  two  of  her  guns,  and  drove  the  men  from 
their  quarters  and  compelled  them  to  strike  their  colors.  During  the 
whole  engagement  we  were  not  at  any  time  more  than  half-pistol 
shot  distance,  and  some  part  of  the  time  our  yards  were  locked 
with  theirs.  I  had  eight  men  wounded,  only  two  of  whom  are  bad. 

I  intended  to  man  her  and  keep  her  as  consort  during  the  cruise,  but 
having  twenty  men  wounded  on  board  of  my  own  men  and  prisoners, 
I  thought  best  to  send  her  home.  .  .  .  ALLEN  HALLETT. 

[NOTE.  —  Mr.  Arthur  Hale  has  made  a  spirited  ballad  from  this  story, 
at  my  request.  It  closes  this  chapter.] 

In  the  same  vessel  Williams*  fought  and  took 
the'  Admiral  Duff,  of  twenty  guns.  He  brought 
her  into  port,  and  was  received  with  all  the  enthusi- 
asm which  an  excited  town  could  express. 

The  most  decided  reverse  experienced  by  the  navy 
was  in  the  autumn  of  1779.  It  was  the  failure  of 
an  expedition  conceived  in  Boston  by  the  govern- 
ment of  the  State  and  cordially  supported  by  the 

*  Williams  is  the  hero  of  a  ballad  of  1789,  describing  the  procession  in  honor  of  the 
adoption  of  the  National  Constitution.  A  little  ship  called  the  Constitution  was  drawn 
through  the  streets  as  a  part  of  the  pageant  : 

"  John  Foster  Williams  in  a  ship 

A  giving  his  commands,  sir, 
It  made  the  lasses  laugh  and  skip 

To  see  a  ship  on  land,  sir." 


MASSACHUSETTS  AT   SEA.  293 

people.  It  does  not  appear  to  have  been  in  any  way 
suggested  by  Congress  or  by  Washington.  It  is,  on 
the  other  hand,  a  curious  illustration  of  the  absolute 
independence  of  the  States,  that  Massachusetts  should 
have  undertaken  such  an  enterprise  on  her  own  ac- 
count. Possibly  her  government  would  not  have 
done  so,  but  that  the  enemy  to  be  attacked  was 
within  her  own  borders. 

The  history  of  this  unfortunate  expedition  is  in- 
teresting, because  it  shows  the  energy  and  prompt- 
ness of  the  infant  State,  although  it  ended  in  dis- 
astrous failure.  The  English  commander  at  Halifax 
had  detached  General  McLane  with  nine  hundred 
men  to  establish  a  post  near  the  point  settled  by  the 
Baron  Castine,  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  before,  near 
the  mouth  of  the  Penobscot.  McLane  arrived  there 
on  the  twelfth  of  June,  1779,  and  met  no  opposition. 
He  began  at  once  on  a  square  fort  in  the  center  of 
the  peninsula  on  which  Castine  now  stands.  The 
place  was  then  known  as  Major-biguyduce.  and  pop- 
ularly called  "  Bageduce,"  a  name  which  lingers  to 
this  day.  News  was  at  once  sent  to  Boston,  to  the 
Council  which  governed  Massachusetts.  Massachu- 
setts had  no  constitution  or  governor  until  the  next 
year.  The  General  Court  was  in  session.  It  ordered 
the  Board  of  War  to  engage  or  employ  such  vessels 
as  could  be  ready  in  six  days,  with  power  to  charter 
or  to  press  private  armed  vessels.  But  there  WHS 
no  need  to  impress  vessels.  There  seem  to  have 
been  quite  enough  privateers  ready  to  volunteer  for 
the  Penobscot  River.  It  was  hoped  that  McLane 


294  MASSACHUSETTS  AT  SEA. 

could  be  surprised  by  a  prompt  movement.  John 
Adams  seems,  from  bis  correspondence,  to  have  been 
eager  to  drive  every  English  soldier  from  the  terri- 
tories of  the  State,  even  though  those  territories 
were  a  wilderness.  He  probably  had  in  mind  the 
certainty  that  when  the  treaty  of  peace  came,  actual 
possession  would  be  an  important  element  in  the 
determination  of  boundary. 

The  Salem  and  Newburyport  merchants  provisioned 
six  vessels  of  the  fleet  for  two  months.  It  consisted 
of  nineteen  ships  of  war  and  twenty-four  transports 
—  a  larger  American  fleet  than  has  ever  sailed  out  of 
the  port  of  Boston  at  any  other  period  of  history  for 
military  adventure.  Saltonstall  of  the  United  States 
navy  was  in  the  Warren,  a  new  frigate  of  thirty-two 
guns,  in  Boston  Harbor,  and  to  him  was  given  the 
command  —  unfortunately,  as  it  proved.  From  the 
little  State  navy  were  furnished  the  Tyrannicide,  the 
Hazard  arid  the  Protector,  under  the  command  of 
John  Foster  Williams.  The  United  States  force 
were  the  Warren,  the  Diligent  and  the  Providence, 
which  were  nearly  all  that  were  left  of  the  Conti- 
nental navy.  Eleven  privateers  joined  in  the  expe- 
dition. At  the  same  session  of  the  General  Court  the 
settlers  in  Maine  were  instructed  to  furnish  nine 
hundred  men  from  the  counties  of  Lincoln,  Cumber- 
land and  York.  The  force  of  marines  and  soldiers 
which  sailed  from  Boston  was  between  three  and  four 
hundred.  Colonel  Revere  furnished  a  hundred  men 
from  his  battalion  of  the  Boston  militia.  The  com- 
mand of  the  army  was  given  to  General  Lovell,  who 


MASSACHUSETTS  AT  SEA.  205 

was  at  that  time  the  brigadier-general  of  the  Suffolk 
militia.  He  was  a  gallant  officer,  but  had  never 
been  accustomed  to  a  large  command.  This  force 
was  equipped  so  promptly  that  it  appeared  before 
Me  Lane's  fort  on  the  twenty-fifth  of  July,  six  weeks 
after  he  had  taken  possession.  On  the  twenty- 
eighth,  Lovell  landed  four  hundred  men,  and,  with 
great  promptness  and  gallantry,  mounted  the  pre- 
cipices on  the  western  side  of  the  island,  and,  in 
face  of  a  hot  fire,  took  possession  of  the  top  of  the 
cliffs.  In  this  advance  he  lost  a  hundred  out  of  the 
landing  party,  and  he  threw  up  some  fortifications 
within  seven  hundred  yards  of  McLane's  main 
works.  For  some  reason,  a  council  of  war  of  the 
land  and  naval  officers  determined  not  to  summon 
the  garrison  to  surrender.  Salton stall  refused  to 
furnish  any  more  of  his  marines,  who  had  suffered 
severely  in  landing.  A  message  was  sent  back  to 
Boston  to  say,  what  was  true  enough,  that  they  had 
not  troops  enough  to  reduce  the  little  fort  by  siege. 
But  Lovell  advanced  his  works,  and  so  pressed  Gen- 
eral McLane  that  it  was  afterward  fully  ascertained 
that  he  would  have  capitulated  if  he  had  been  sum- 
moned. Saltonstall,  however,  who  was  the  real  com-- 
mander  of  the  expedition,  seems  to  have  been  eager 
to  achieve  some  greater  success.  Perhaps  he  would 
have  done  so,  but,  on  the  thirteenth  of  August,  while 
Lovell  was  still  pressing  his  advances,  an  English 
fleet  of  seven  sail  appeared  in  the  outer  waters  of 
Penobscot  Bay. 

Saltonstall   drew  up   his  fleet  in   the   form  of   a 


296  MASSACHUSETTS  AT  SEA. 

crescent  to  meet  this  new  enemy.  Sir  George 
Collier  was  in  command  of  the  English  He  ad- 
vanced without  hesitation,  and  poured  in  a  heavy 
broadside,  which  threw  the  American  fleet  into  con- 
fusion. They  were  not  outnumbered,  but  undoubt- 
edly had  a  much  heavier  weight  of  metal  opposed  to 
them  "than  their  own.  The  English  fleet  mounted 
two  hundred  and  four  guns,  while  the  guns  of  the 
nineteen  American  vessels  numbered  three  hundred 
and  forty-four.  But  he  had  a  very  great  advantage 
given  him  in  being  in  command  of  the  Raisonable, 
which  was  a  ship-of-the-line,  while  Saltonstall's  flag- 
ship which  was  his  largest  ship  was  the  Warren,  of 
thirty-two  guns.  The  different  American  vessels 
tried  to  escape  by  one  and  another  passage,  but 
eventually  were  all  lost,  being  generally  burned  or 
blown  up  by  their  crews.  The  Hunter  of  eighteen 
guns  and  the  Hampton  of  twenty  were  captured. 

The  officers  and  men  of  the  army  of  course  aban- 
doned the  position  they  had  taken,  and  were  obliged 
to  march  through  the  woods  in  their  retreat.  Sal- 
tonstall,  Lovell,  and  Wadsworth,  his  second  in  com- 
jinand,  were  all  court-martialed  on  their  return. 
"Saltonstall  was  made  to  bear  the  brunt  of  the  whole 
failure.  This  is  probably  fair,  although  it  was  un- 
fair to  charge  him  with  treachery  and  cowardice. 
He  had  the  very  great  difficulty  that  he  commanded 
a  body  of  privateersmen  who  were  entirely  unused 
to  being  commanded,  and  would  do  as  they  chose, 
whatever  he  said  to  them.  But  he  had  three  vessels 
of  the  United  States  navy  and  three  vessels  of  the 


MASSACHUSETTS  AT  SEA.  2^7 

Massachusetts  navy,  which  were  more  amenable  to 
orders.  It  certainly  seems  as  if  he  might  have  saved 
his  squadron  by  taking  it  to  sea,  before  the  over- 
whelming force  of  the  enemy  hemmed  him  in  in  the 
harbor.  But  it  is  idle,  after  a  hundred  years,  to  say 
that  the  skillful  man  who  was  upon  the  spot  did  not 
do  as  well  as  he  could,  knowing,  better  than  we 
know,  the  circumstances  of  his  command. 

This  lamentable  failure  has  an  historical  interest, 
because  it  was  practically  the  end  of  the  navy  of  the 
United  States  and  of  the  separate  navy  of  the  State 
of  Massachusetts.  After  that  time  the  war  at  sea 
was  conducted  almost  wholly  by  privateersmen,  while 
the  French  fleet  kept  the  sea,  not  unsuccessfully, 
against  Lord  Howe  and  the  other  English  marine 
commanders.  The  privateer  fleet  of  Massachusetts 
was  stronger  and  stronger  to  the  end  of  the  war. 
Privateering  had  become  the  business  of  those  who 
had  no  longer  the  fisheries,  or  the  regular  commerce 
of  older  times  to  rely  upon.  At  the  end  of  the  war, 
the  town  of  Salem  alone  had  fifty-nine  privateers  in 
commission,  carrying  four  thousand  men.  This  is  a 
force  larger  in  numbers  than  the  United  States  had 
afloat  in  the  year  1890. 


298  MASSACHUSETTS  AT  SEA. 


THE   YANKEE   PRIVATEER. 

[BY   ARTHUR  HALE.] 
I. 

Come,  listen  and  I'll  tell  you 

How  first  I  went  to  sea, 
To  fight  against  the  British 

And  earn  our  liberty. 
We  shipped  with  Captain  W hippie 

Who  never  knew  a  fear, 
The  Captain  of  the  Providence, 

The  Yankee  privateer. 
We  sailed  and  we  sailed 

And  made  good  cheer; 
There  were  many  pretty  men 

On  the  Yankee  privateer. 

II. 

The  British  Lord  High  Admiral, 

He  wished  old  Whipple  harm, 
He  wrote  him  that  he'd  hang  him 

From  the  end  of  his  yard-arm. 
"My  lord,"  wrote  Whipple  back  again, 

"  It  seems  to  me  it's  clear, 
That  if  you  want  to  hang  him, 

You  must  catch  your  Privateer." 
So  we  sailed  and  we  sailed 

And  we  made  good  cheer, 
For  not  a  British  frigate 

Could  come  near  the  Privateer. 

III. 

We  sailed  to  the  South'ard 

And  nothing  did  we  meet 
Till  we  found  three  British  frigates 

And  their  West  Indian  fleet. 
Old  Whipple  shut  our  ports 

And  crawled  up  near, 
And  shut  us  all  below 

On  the  Yankee  Privateer. 


MASSACHUSETTS  AT  SEA.  299 

So  slowly  he  sailed 

We  fell  to  the  rear 
And  not  a  soul  suspected 

The  Yankee  Privateer. 


At  dark  he  put  the  lights  out 

And  forward  we  ran, 
And  silently  we  boarded 

The  biggest  merchantman. 
We  knocked  down  the  watch  — 

The  lubbers  shook  for  fear — • 
She's  a  prize,  without  a  shot, 

To  the  bold  Privateer! 
We  sent  the  prize  North 

And  dropped  to  the  rear, 
And  all  day  we  slept 

On  the  bold  Privateer. 

V. 

For  ten  days  we  sailed, 

And,  e'er  the  sun  rose, 
Each  night  a  prize  we'd  taken 

Beneath  the  Lion's  nose. 
When  the  British  looked  to  see 

Why  their  ships  should  disappear, 
They  found  they  had  in  convoy 

A  Yankee  Privateer. 
But  we  sailed  and  we  sailed, 

And  never  thought  of  fear ; 
Not  a  coward  was  on  board 

The  Yankee  Privateer. 

VI. 

The  biggest  British  frigate 

Bore  round  to  give  us  chase, 
But  though  he  was  the  fleetest, 

Old  Whipple  wouldn't  race 
Till  he'd  raked  her  fore  and  aft  — 

For  the  lubbers  couldn't  steer  — 
Then  he  showed  them  the  heels 

Of  the  Yankee  Privateer. 


300  MASSACHUSETTS  AT  SEA. 


We  sailed  and  we  sailed, 
And  we  made  good  cheer, 

But  not  a  British  frigate 
Could  come  near  the  Privateer. 

VII. 

Then  we  sailed  to  the  North, 

To  the  town  we  all  know, 
And  there  lay  our  prizes 

All  anchored  in  a  row. 
And  welcome  were  we 

To  our  homes  so  dear, 
And  we  shared  a  million  dollars 

On  the  Yankee  Privateer. 
We'd  sailed  and  we'd  sailed, 

And  we  made  good  cheer, 
We  all  had  full  pockets 

On  the  bold  Privateer. 

VIII. 

Then  we  each  manned  a  ship 

And  our  sails  unfurled, 
And  we  bore  the  stars  and  stripes 

O'er  the  oceans  of  the  world. 
From  the  proud  flag  of  Britain 

We  swept  the  seas  clear, 
And  we  earned  our  independence 

On  the  Yankee  Privateer ! 
Then,  sailors  and  landsmen, 

One  more  cheer! 
Here  is  three  times  three 

For  the  Yankee  Privateer! 


CHAPTER   XIX. 

SHAY'S    REBELLION. 

THE  history  of  republics  shows  that  their  greatest 
difficulty  is  not  the  expulsion  of  a  tyrant. 
It  may  be  doubted  whether  any  tyrant  has  ever 
reigned  long  over  any  considerable  body  of  people 
unanimous  in  determining  that  he  should  not  reign 
over  them.  The  great  difficulty  comes  when  the 
people  have  to  determine  whether  they  will  obey  their 
own  laws.  If  one  government  can  be  turned  out, 
why  not  another  ?  Obedience  to  law  is  not  always 
agreeable.  If  we  have  a  law  which  is  disagreeable, 
which  presses  upon  our  comforts,  why  should  we  not 
throw  it  off  ? 

All  experience  has  shown  indeed  —  as  Mr.  Jeffer- 
son says  in  one  of  the  best  passages  of  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  —  that  men  are  more  willing 
to  remain  oppressed  by  familiar  evils,  than  to  risk 
new  ones.  This  is  true  enough.  But,  after  a 
successful  revolution,  like  that  which  sent  the  army 
of  England  back  across  the  ocean,  the  danger  will 
come  that  the  people  will  not  have  the  old  aversion 
to  change  which  has  made  it  conservative  in  other 
times. 

John  Adams  and  the  other  leaders  of  Massachu- 

301 


302  SHAY'S  REBELLION. 

setts  had  been  very  sensitive  in  this  matter.  Adams's 
letters  show  the  greatest  anxiety  that  a  respect,  even 
a  reverence,  for  "  government "  shall  be  cultivated 
among  the  citizens  of  Massachusetts,  while  the 
struggle  was  going  on.  While  it  went  on,  such  re- 
spect was,  on  the  whole,  maintained.  The  tokens 
of  disrespect  indeed,  when  found,  are  in  the  letters 
and  journals  —  not  of  the  working  people,  but  of 
what  would  have  called  itself  the  aristocracy.  It  is 
among  clergymen  and  merchants  that  you  find  a  sneer 
because  a  blacksmith  is  a  general,  or  a  shoemaker  a 
member  of  Congress.  But  such  sneers  are  only  the 
ripple  on  the  surface.  On  the  whole  Massachusetts 
was  absolutely  loyal  to  her  own  government,  while 
the  war  continued.  Government  was  but  a  cumbrous 
machine  at  first.  Until  1780  it  was  the  Executive 
Committee  of  the  General  Court,  which  went  on  in 
its  business  as  it  had  done  for  a  hundred  and  fifty 
years  before.  In  1780  the  present  Constitution  was 
made.  It  is  largely  the  work  of  John  Adams,  who 
was  at  home,  in  a  break  in  his  European  diplomatic 
life.  It  was  inaugurated  with  ceremony,  and  went 
on  with  success  for  six  years.  It  was  then  that  it 
sustained  the  severest  strain  to  which  it  has  ever 
been  exposed.  The  Republican  theory  of  govern- 
ment, however,  came  out  triumphant.  This  crisis, 
all  important,  as  deciding  for  a  long  period  the 
real  attachment  of  the  people  to  government  as 
government,  is  known  in  local  history  as  "  Shay's 
Insurrection." 

It  must  be  remembered  that  though  the  war  was 


SHAY'S  REBELLION .  303 

ended,  it  was  not  yet  paid  for.  A  very  heavy  debt 
pressed  the  United  States  and  the  State  of  Massa- 
chusetts. The  estimate  is  made  that  the  private 
debts  in  the  State  amounted  to  £1,300,000;  the 
State  owed  £250,000  to  her  own  soldiers ;  and 
her  proportion  of  the  Federal  debt  was  £1,500,000. 
At  the  same  time  the  polls  of  Massachusetts  did  not 
number  90,000  men.  The  property  of  the  State  was 
still  largely  held  by  farmers.  Maritime  commerce 
had  suffered  a  severe  check  in  the  Revolution,  and 
the  new  sources  of  wealth  which  it  was  to  open  to 
Massachusetts  were  not  yet  developed.  Only  the 
very  beginning  had  been  made  of  the  system  of 
manufacture  upon  which  Massachusetts  now  relies. 
Whatever  may  be  the  popularity  now  of  a  system  of 
taxation  by  which  all  revenue  shall  be  collected  by 
taxes  upon  land,  that  system  was  by  no  means  so 
popular  when  the  greater  part  of  the  revenue  was 
so  collected.  It  was  clear  enough  to  the  farmer  in 
Massachusetts,  and  indeed  in  the  other  States,  that 
he  paid  a  much  larger  proportion  of  the  taxes  than 
was  paid  by  the  very  few  men  who  were  successful 
in  commerce,  or  who  had  fortunes  inherited  from  the 
past. 

In  this  condition  of  things  there  arose,  not 
unnaturally,  in  all  the  States,  a  dislike  of  merchants 
and  a  dislike  of  lawyers.  If  a  man  did  not  pay  his 
taxes,  the  courts  were  called  upon  to  compel  him  to 
do  so,  and  naturally  the  farmer  disliked  the  men  who 
were  the  agents  of  justice.  With  such  causes  of 
disaffection  the  legislature  of  Massachusetts  met  in 


304  SHAY'S  REBELLION. 

the  year  1786.  Various  proposals  for  reform  and 
the  redress  of  grievances  were  presented.  As  against 
the  lawyers,  the  House  of  Representatives  passed  a 
bill  opening  the  courts  to  all  persons  of  good  character, 
and  restricting. the  fees  of  attorneys  ;  but  the  Senate 
refused  to  consider  this  bill.  Another  bill  was  for  an 
issue  of  paper  money,  which  might  relieve  the  tax- 
payers ;  this  bill,  however,  was  rejected  in  the  House 
by  a  strong  vote.  Another  "  popular  bill"  made 
real  and  personal  estate  legal  tender,  but  this  was 
defeated  by  a  vote  of  more  than  two  to  one.  The 
House  did  pass  an  act  granting  supplementary  funds 
to  the  National  Congress.  It  thus  showed  itself  still 
firm  to  what  may  be  called  the  cause  of  Government. 

The  discontented  tax-payers  felt  that  they  had 
nothing  to  expect  from  a  legislature  which  met  in 
Boston,  and  which  they  conceived  to  be  under  the 
influence  of  merchants  and  lawyers.  As  soon  as  the 
two  houses  adjourned,  the  disaffected  people  in 
the  county  of  Hampshire,  which  then  included  the 
whole  of  that  part  of  the  Connecticut  Valley,  which 
is  in  Massachusetts,  called  a  convention.  They  be- 
gan by  protesting  against  riots.  They  then  con- 
demned the  Senate  of  the  State  ;  they  passed  resolu- 
tions denouncing  the  impost  and  the  excise  for  the 
payment  of  continental  taxes,  proposing  the  abolition 
of  the  Senate,  and  declaring  that  the  Court  of  Com- 
mon Pleas  was  unnecessary.  Publishing  these  state- 
ments as  a  sort  of  basis  of  opinion  for  the  malcontents, 
they  adjourned. 

The    immediate   consequence  was  that  when,  in 


SHAY'S  REBELLION.  305 

August  of  that  year,  the  Court  of  Common  PleaS 
met  in  Hampshire,  the  judges  found  the  court-house 
in  possession  of  an  armed  mob.  In  the  county  of 
Worcester,  a  paper  had  been  circulated  by  which  the 
subscribers  bound  themselves  to  prevent  the  sitting 
of  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas.  On  the  fifth  of 
September  the  court  was  to  be  held  at  Worcester. 
A  mob  of  a  hundred  men  assembled,  and  the  court, 
finding  that  the  militia  even  took  sides  with  the 
mob,  adjourned  on  the  next  day  "  without  day."  In 
Concord  in  Middlesex  County,  similar  malcontents 
were  encouraged  by  the  arrival  of  a  force  of  ninety 
men,  well  armed,  from  Hampshire  and  Worcester. 
In  Berkshire,  the  western  county  of  the  State,  the 
insurgents,  as  they  began  to  be  called,  broke  open 
the  jail,  set  the  prisoners  free,  and  prevented  the 
sitting  of  the  Court. 

Thus  far  the  proceedings  were  against  the  Courts 
of  Common  Pleas,  to  which  fell  the  immediate  busi- 
ness of  issuing  orders  for  the  sale  of  farms  on  which 
the  taxes  had  not  been  paid.  The  leaders  were  now 
so  satisfied  with  such  success  that  they  determined 
that  the  Supreme  Court  should  not  sit  at  Springfield. 
Here  a  square  issue  was  made  between  them  and 
the  governor.  He  ordered  six  hundred  militia  under 
arms,  and  gave  the  command  to  General  Shepard. 
By  the  time  the  court  was  to  be  held,  the  malcontents 
had  assembled  an  armed  force  of  five  or  six  hundred 
men,  which  was  under  the  command  of  Daniel  Shay. 
The  court  held  a  formal  session,  but  transacted  no 
business ;  and,  after  meeting  two  successive  dnys,  it 


306  -     SHAY'S  REBELLION. 

rose.  During  these  three  days  the  militia  and  the 
rioters,  in  bodies  of  about  equal  force,  were  in  pres- 
ence of  each  other,  but  both  parties  probably  dreaded 
an  appeal  to  force.  Shepard  was  able  to  protect 
the  Federal  arsenal  which  already  existed  at  Spring- 
field. After  the  adjournment  of  the  court  Shay 
withdrew  his  men. 

Thus  far  the  insurgents  had  succeeded  in  their 
object  of  delaying  the  execution  of  law,  so  far  as  law 
compelled  the  payment  of  taxes.  It  was  clear,  how- 
ever, to  James  Bowdoin,  then  governor,  and  to  all 
the  friends  of  Government,  that  no  such  obstruc- 
tion as  this  must  be  permitted.  It  would  seem  as  if 
they  had  till  now  acted  under  the  impression  that 
the  complaints  would  exhaust  themselves  in  con- 
ventions and  in  resolutions,  and  that  the  native 
deference  to  law  would  show  itself,  when  the  incon- 
veniences were  felt  which  would  attend  the  suspen- 
sion of  the  courts.  But,  as  winter  drew  on,  they 
abandoned  any  such  hope.  Indeed,  there  were  more 
and  more  tokens  of  real  insubordination  and  anarchy. 
"  Burning  barns  and  blazing  haystacks "  were  the 
tokens  of  the  punishment  by  which  lawless  men 
showed  their  resentment  against  friends  of  the 
Government. 

Bowdoin  determined  to  collect  an  army  for  the 
suppression  of  what  he  now  called  an  insurrection.  He 
ordered  out  four  thousand  four  hundred  men  and  gave 
the  command  to  Benjamin  Lincoln,  the  most  distin- 
guished Massachusetts  officer  of  the  war.  The  men 
were  enlisted  for  thirty  days  unless  sooner  discharged, 


SHAY'S  REBELLION.  307 

and  were  to  receive  the  pay  of  Continentals.  Bow- 
doin  knew,  however,  perfectly  well,  that  he  had  not 
the  funds  with  which  to  pay  these  men,  nor  even  to 
start  them  upon  their  expedition ;  and  it  is  matter 
of  tradition  that,  in  this  exigency,  a  club  of  Boston 
gentlemen,  which  still  holds  its  festive  meetings  on 
Wednesday  evenings  in  the  winter,  agreed  one  night 
to  send  to  Bovvdoin  the  ten  thousand  dollars  in 
specie,  which  he  considered  sufficient  for  beginning 
the  campaign. 

There  was  no  difficulty  in  recruiting  the  troops, 
and  on  the  twenty-second  of  January  Lincoln  found 
himself  in  command  of  a  very  respectable  army. 
Almost  every  man  in  Massachusetts  was  now  trained 
to  arms,  and  this  was  a  body  of  veterans.  The  Gov- 
ernor's Guard,  the  Boston  Cadets,  were  a  part  of 
this  force,  and  it  is  probable  that  every  man  in  it  had 
served  as  a  soldier.  Orders  had  been  given  to  Shep- 
ard  at  Springfield  to  collect  such  force  as  he  could 
to  defend  the  arsenal.  The  insurgents  hoped  to  sur- 
round him  and  take  possession  of  it  before  Lincoln 
could  arrive. 

On  the  afternoon  of  the  twenty-fifth  of  January, 
Shepard  saw  Daniel  Shay's  column  advance.  He 
sent  a  flag  and  warned  him  that  he  must  not 
approach  within  a  line  which  he  indicated.  Shay 
tried  the  experiment,  but  his  troops  did  not  sustain 
the  fire  of  the  loyal  army.  They  fled  in  confusion, 
and  when  Shay  was  able  to  rally  them  it  was  found 
that  two  hundred  deserters  had  gone  home. 

Lincoln,  with  his  army,  arrived  in  Springfield  on 


308  SHAY'S  REBELLION. 

the  morning  of  the  twenty-seventh.  The  traveler 
now  passes  over  that  distance  in  less  than  three 
hours  ;  Lincoln  had  been  five  days  on  the  march,  in 
cold  and  in  snow.  But  he  gave  his  men  no  rest  when 
they  arrived.  He  pressed  the  enemy,  who  had 
already  retreated  before  Shepard,  so  vigorously  that 
his  force  diminished  rapidly,  under  the  dread  of  a 
collision  and  the  pressure  of  winter.  The  vigor  of 
Lincoln's  operations  was  such  that  he  surprised  the 
nucleus  of  the  rebel  army  at  Petersham  in  Worcester 
County. 

The  rout  was  complete,  and,  from  that  moment, 
they  never  appeared  in  force.  There  were  small 
gatherings  of  insurgents  in  different  counties  which, 
at  one  period  or  another,  gained  head  against  the 
Government.  But,  with  the  complete  defeat  of 
Shay  and  his  party,  it  may  be  said  that  the  insur- 
rection came  to  an  end.  From  the  time  when 
Lincoln  led  his  men  out  from  Roxbury  to  the  disper- 
sion of  the  armed  force  of  the  rebels  at  Petersham, 
scarcely  ten  days  had  elapsed.  The  governors  of 
the  neighboring  States  were  on  the  alert  to  break  up 
parties  of  rebels  who  might  appear  in  armed  force 
among  them,  and  the  success  of  government  in  Mas- 
sachusetts proved  to  be  the  success  of  government  in 
every  State.  For  it  may  be  said  that  in  every  State 
were  the  difficulties  experienced  which  pressed  upon 
the  government  of  Massachusetts. 

The  insurrection  and  its  suppression  were  of  much 
greater  importance  than  many  a  pitched  battle  cele- 
brated in  history  and  in  song.  They  tested  the 


SHAY'S  REBELLION.  309 

question  whether  the  people  of  Massachusetts  meant 
to  support  government  because  it  was  government. 
To  that  question  that  people  replied  in  the  affirma- 
tive, and  the  principle  was  thus  established  on 
which,  and  on  which  alone,  the  existence  of  a  republic 
depends. 


CHAPTER   XX. 

THE    WAR    OF    1812. 

condition  of  Massachusetts  in  the  second 
-A-  war  with  England  was  a  curious  one.  There 
are  a  good  many  points  of  even  pathetic  interest  con- 
nected with  it,  and  her  people  and  her  statesmen,  of 
both  political  parties,  were  intensely  interested,  were 
bitterly  disappointed,  and  were  jubilant  with  success, 
at  different  moments  of  that  foolish  and  ineffectual 
struggle.  In  the  dissensions  of  the  first  ten  years  of 
the  century,  which  were  probably  wholly  unnecessary, 
between  the  agricultural  States  of  the  Union  and  the 
commercial  States,  Massachusetts  had  suffered  some 
severe  reverses.  On  the  other  hand,  as  the  Portu- 
guese minister  of  that  time  said,  it  seemed  as  though 
that  Divine  providence  which  has  always  been  said 
to  take  care  of  drunkards,  idiots  and  crazy  people, 
had  a  special  care  of  the  United  States.  No  matter 
how  foolish  the  policy  at  Washington — and  very 
foolish  it  often  was  —  the  affairs  of  Europe  were  so 
ordered  that  it  was  difficult  for  the  commercial  States 
to  fail  of  great  success. 

The  children  of  New  England  have  the  Norse 
blood  in  their  veins.  There  have  been  times  when 
they  could  have  been  said  to  be  the  best  sailors  in 

310 


THE   WAR    OF  1812.  311 

the  world.  Long  before  the  Revolution  they  had 
made  themselves  the  ship-builders  of  the  world,  as 
has  been  said  in  another  chapter.  All  of  a  sudden, 
in  the  European  complications,  England  chose  to  try 
to  suppress  the  maritime  commerce  of  all  continental 
Europe,  and  Napoleon  tried  to  suppress  the  conti- 
nental commerce  of  England.  Here  was  exactly  the 
opportunity  for  the  New  England  ship-master  to  do 
what  was  called  the  carrying-trade  of  the  whole 
world,  and  the  commerce  of  New  England  increased 
in  rapid  proportion. 

The  government  of  this  country,  in  the  hands  of 
Mr.  Jefferson  and  under  Southern  prejudices,  did  not 
fail  to  see  this  success,  and  was  irritated  in  propor- 
tion. A  series  of  measures,  aimed  theoretically  at 
England,  checked  the  success  of  the  American  ship- 
masters to  such  a  point  that  such  support  as  the 
Democratic  party  had  in  New  England  was  lost,  and 
even  Mr.  Jefferson  himself  was  frightened  with  the 
rebukes  which  he  received  from  the  maritime  States 
of  the  North.  But  when  Mr.  Madison  came  to  the 
presidency  in  1809,  there  is  no  doubt  that  his  wish 
and  determination  were  to  recede  from  the  belligerent 
attitude  which  the  southern  government  of  this 
country  had  assumed  towards  England.  But  a  new 
power  arose  at  tha*t  time.  The  younger  heads  of  the 
Democratic  party,  headed  notably  by  Mr.  Clay  and 
Mr.  Calhoun,  waited  upon  Mr.  Madison,  and  told  him 
that  if  war  were  not  proclaimed,  or  if  the  belligerent 
measures  which  the  younger  Democrats  favored  were 
not  countenanced  by  the  administration,  he  should 


312  THE   WAR    OF  1812. 

not  be  his  own  successor  in  1813.  Poor  Mr.  Madi- 
son, who  had,  for  all  the  earlier  part  of  his  life, 
been  obliged  to  submit  to  what  he  really  did  not  like 
—  the  policy  of  Mr.  Jefferson  —  was  now  obliged, 
for  the  rest  of  his  public  life,  to  submit  to  the  policy 
of  Mr.  Clay  and  Mr.  Calhoun,  which  he  liked  less. 
He  therefore,  very  unwillingly,  assented  to  what  is 
now  known  as  the  short  war  with  England. 

That  war  was  carried  on  for  rather  more  than  two 
years,  with  wretched  success  on  the  land.  The 
Democratic  party,  which  had  made  the  war,  would 
have  lost  steadily  in  repute  through  the  country, 
but  for  the  brilliancy  and  success  of  a  series  of  naval 
victories. 

These  naval  victories  were  won  by  the  seamen  of 
the  maritime  States,  in  a  navy  which  had  been 
created  under  the  administration  of  Mr.  Adams,  and 
which  had  been  steadily  thwarted  and  frowned  upon 
under  the  administration  of  Mr.  Jefferson.  But, 
fortunately  for  the  United  States,  she  had  afloat  at 
this  time  a  few  frigates  which  it  is  fair  to  say  from 
the  issue,  were  the  finest  war-ships  in  the  world. 
Such  were  the  Constitution,  which  had  been  built  at 
'Hart's  Wharf  in  Boston,  in  1796,  the  United  States, 
the  Chesapeake,  the  President,  and  others.  The 
names  of  some  of  these  vessels,  especially  that  of  the 
Constitution,  have  long  been  wrought  into  the  poetry 
and  enthusiastic  prose  literature  of  the  country ;  and 
the  fame  of  Old  Ironsides,  the  popular  name  of  the 
Constitution,  has  become  a  part  of  the  choice  mem- 
ories of  patriots  old  and  young. 


THE    WAR    OF  1812.  313 

The  navy  of  that  period  was  commanded  by  a  small 
number  of  officers,  one  or  two  of  whom  had  memories 
running  back  to  the  war  of  the  Revolution,  many 
of  whom  had  served  in  the  Algerine  War,  and  all  of 
whom,  it  is  fair  to  say,  had  the  very  best  character- 
istics of  the  old  adventurous  blood  which  had  carried 
the  New  England  seamen  over  the  world.  The  crews 
and  the  officers  of  these  vessels  were  men  of  the 
same  type.  They  early  showed  the  readiness  for 
discipline  which  is,  curiously  enough,  wrought  in 
with  the  New  England  characteristics  of  inde- 
pendence. And  it  is  fair  to  say  that  there  never 
sailed  the  sea  a  class  of  men  more  able  to  give  effect 
to  the  commands  of  intelligent  officers.  It  is  hardly 
fair,  therefore,  to  say  that  "  it  happened,"  it  is  rather 
a  matter  of  course  that  when  such  vessels  went  to 
sea  at  the  beginning  of  the  war,  maimed  by  such 
men,  they  won  instantly  a  series  of  remarkable  vic- 
tories, which  are  admitted  on  all  sides  to  have 
changed  the  naval  history  of  the  world.  That  is  to 
sny,  naval  architecture  from  that  time  has  been 
changed,  and  the  necessities  of  naval  warfare  are 
recognized  as  different  from  what  they  were  in  the 
earlier  part  of  the  great  Napoleonic  wars  of  the  cent- 
ury. It  is  a  curious  fact  that  the  officers  in  command 
of  these  frigates  actually  hurried  them  to  sea,  acting 
largely  on  their  own  responsibility,  in  the  fear  that 
the  government  at  Washington  would  shut  them  up 
in  the  harbors,  and  that  they  would  have  no  oppor- 
tunity to  test  their  fighting  qualities.  But  once  at 
sea,  as  has  been  said,  their  success  was  remarkable. 


314  THE   WAR    OF  1812. 

It  was  the  joke  of  the  time  that  the  Congress  and 
the  President  were  always  unsuccessful,  but  that  the 
Constitution  and  the  United  States  were  always  vic- 
torious. This  was  one  of  those  happy  epigrams  of 
which  history  is  so  fond,  and  which  parties  in  power 
have  to  take  as  they  can. 

Curiously  enough,  it  happened  that  the  commander 
of  the  Constitution  in  her  first  cruise,  was  Isaac  Hull, 
the  nephew  of  the  General  Hull,  a  Massachusetts 
officer,  whom  it  had  been  convenient  for  Mr. 
Madison's  government  to  sacrifice  at  the  beginning 
of  the  war. 

The  war  was  proclaimed  on  the  eighteenth  of 
June.  As  early  as  the  thirteenth  of  August  the 
Essex,  which  bore  a  Massachusetts  name,  fought  the 
Alert,  an  English  ship,  and  took  her.  On  the  nine- 
teenth of  August,  Isaac  Hull,  who  had  taken  the 
Constitution  out,  engaged  the  English  frigate  Guer- 
riere,  and,  after  a  battle  of  two  hours,  dismasted  her, 
and  compelled  her  to  strike.  Hull  returned  to 
Boston  to  refit,  and  was  received  with  all  the 
triumphs  of  a  Roman  conqueror.  The  Federal  party 
saw  that  they  had  their  opportunity,  and  in  every 
way  proclaimed  that  they  were  entitled  to  the  credit 
of  all  the  victories  of  the  navy.  Everybody  in 
Boston  remembered  that  the  Constitution  was  built 
in  Boston,  and  that  almost  all  her  seamen  were  of 
New  England  birth.  The  Democrats,  of  course,  on 
their  side,  were  eager  to  claim  the  victory  as  belong- 
ing to  the  best  policy  of  the  war,  so  that  for  once 
both  parties  were  satisfied  or  pretended  to  be. 


THE   WAR    OF  1812.  315 

From  the  beginning,  the  Constitution  was  regarded 
as  a  Massachusetts  vessel.  To  this  day  Hart's  Wharf 
is  fondly  pointed  out  as  the  place  where  Old  Iron- 
sides was  built.  For  many  years,  whenever  the 
Constitution  was  to  be  repaired,  she  was  sent  to  the 
Navy  Yard  at  Charlestown.  In  the  year  1834,  a 
complete  restoration  of  the  old  vessel  took  place, 
and  the  oak  which  was  taken  out  of  her  was  carved 
into  ornaments,  into  walking-sticks,  or  in  some  other 
way  was  fondly  preserved  as  a  memorial  of  victory. 
Indeed,  the  proposal  of  a  Southern  administration  to 
break  her  up  had  been  met  with  indignation,  uttered 
in  one  of  Dr.  Holmes's  earlier  poems.  From  that 
day  to  this  day  the  Constitution  has  been  preserved 
as  a  memorial  of  old  victory,  and  one  of  the  first 
bits  of  good  news  after  the  rebellion  began,  was  the 
announcement  that,  by  the  rapid  advance  of  a 
Massachusetts  regiment  to  Annapolis,  Old  Ironsides 
had  been  saved.  This  old  vessel,  now  nearly  a  hun- 
dred years  old,  is  still  preserved.  It  is  used,  I  think, 
as  one  of  the  training-ships  of  the  young  officers  of 
the  navy,  at  Annapolis. 

With  such  recollections  of  the  history  of  the  Con- 
stitution, the  reader  of  the  Story  of  Massachusetts 
will  be  interested  in  tracing  in  more  detail  some 
steps  of  her  triumphs  in  the  war.  She  was  in  An- 
napolis when  the  proclamation  of  war  was  issued. 
Hall  instantly  shipped  a  new  crew  ;  and  on  the 
thirteenth  of  July  he  sailed  with  her.  On  the 
seventeenth  of  July  he  discovered  five  sail  to  the 
north  and  east  of  him,  which  proved  to  be  English 


316  THE    WAR    OF  1812. 

vessels  of  war.  After  coquetting  with  each  other 
for  an  afternoon  and  through  the  night,  it  was  made 
sure  that  these  vessels  were  the  squadron  of  Commo- 
dore Broke.  They  closed  with  the  American  frigate 
during  the  night.  In  the  morning  they  were  just 
out  of  gunshot.  They  had  with  them  two  prizes. 
At  the  moment  when  the  different  vessels  made 
sure  of  each  other,  at  daybreak  on  the  eighteenth, 
it  was  quite  calm.  Captain  Hull  knew  that  his  only 
safety  was  in  the  swiftness  of  his  vessel.  He  was 
obliged  to  send  out  her  boats  to  tow  the  ship,  and  for 
an  hour  they  did  so.  He  afterwards  sent  forward 
from  time  to  time  a  "  kedge "  half  a  mile  away. 
"  At  a  signal  given  the  crew  clapped  on,  and  walked 
away  with  the  ship,  overrunning  and  tripping  the 
kedge  as  she  came  up  with  the  end  of  the  line. 
While  this  was  doing,  fresh  lines  and  another  kedge 
were  carried  ahead,  and  in  this  manner,  though  out 
of  sight  of  land,  the  frigate  had  glided  away  from 
her  pursuers  before  they  discovered  the  manner  in 
which  the  escape  was  made.  It  was  not  long,  how- 
ever, before  the  English  resorted  to  the  same  expedi- 
ent." As  soon  as  the  Constitution  had  a  little  air, 
she  set  her  ensign  and  fired  a  shot  at  the  Shannon, 
the  nearest  ship  astern.  From  this  moment,  for  two 
days,  these  vessels  were  in  sight  of  each  other, 
occasionally  exchanging  shots,  but  without  injury  to 
one  another. 

At  evening  of  the  second  day  a  squall  struck  the 
Constitution,  for  which  she  was  ready,  and  with  the 
impulse  given  by  this  gale  she  ran  awav  from  her 


THE    WAR   OF  1812.  317 

pursuers  at  the  rate  of  eleven  knots.  The  discipline 
maintained'  by  the  crew  through  the  whole  matter 
was  such  as  to  give  great  confidence  to  the  officers 
as  to  their  behavior  in  any  other  exigency.  And 
from  this  moment  it  might  be  said  that  the  vessel 
had  a  charmed  name. 

Hull  ran  into  Boston  before  the  end  of  July,  and 
sailed  again  on  the  second  of  August.  It  was  after 
she  had  taken  two  or  three  prizes  that  on  the 
nineteenth  she  made  a  sail  to  the  eastward,  which 
proved  to  be  the  Guerriere,  one  of  the  ships  of 
Broke's  squadron,  which  had  so  lately  chased  the 
Constitution. 

The  narrative  which  follows  is  Fenimore  Cooper's: 


"  At  five  in  the  afternoon  the  chase  hoisted  three  English  ensigns, 
and  immediately  after  she  opened  her  tire,  at  long  gun-shot,  wearing, 
several  times,  to  rake  and  prevent  being  raked.  The  Constitution 
occasionally  yawed  as  she  approached,  to  avoid  being  raked,  and  she 
fired  a  few  guns  as  they  bore,  but  her  aim  was  not  to  commence  the 
action  seriously  until  quite  close. 

"  At  six  o'clock  the  enemy  bore  up  and  ran  ofl',  under  his  three  top- 
sails and  jib,  with  the  wind  on  his  quarter.  As  this  was  an  indication 
of  a  readiness  to  receive  his  antagonist  in  a  fair  yard-arm-and-yard- 
arm  fight,  the  Constitution  immediately  set  her  maintop-gallant-sail 
and  foresail  to  get  alongside.  At  a  little  after  six,  the  bows  of  the 
American  ship  began  to  double  on  the  quarter  of  the  English  ship,  when 
she  opened  with  her  forward  guns,  drawing  slowly  ahead,  with  her 
greater  way,  both  vessels  keeping  up  a  close  and  heavy  lire,  as  their 
guns  bore.  In  about  ten  minutes,  or  just  as  the  ships  were  fairly  side 
by  side,  the  mizzen-mast  of  the  Englishman  was  shot  away,  when  the 
American  passed  slowly  ahead,  keeping  up  a  tremendous  (ire,  and  luffed 
short  round  his  bows  to  prevent  being  raked.  In  executing  this  ma- 
neuver, the  ship  shot  into  the  wind,  got  stern-way,  and  fell  foul  of  her 
antagonist.  While  in  this  situation  the  cabin  of  the  Constitution  took 
fire,  from  the  close  explosion  of  the  forward  guns  of  the  enemy,  who 
obtained  a  small  but  momentary  advantage  from  his  position.  The 


318  THE   WAR    OF  1812. 

good  conduct  of  Mr.  Hoffman,  who  commanded  in  the  cabin,  soon  re- 
paired this  accident,  and  a  gun  of  the  enemy's,  that  threatened  further 
injury,  was  disabled. 

"  As  the  vessels  touched,  both  parties  prepared  to  board.  The 
English  turned  all  hands  up  from  below  and  mustered  forward  with 
that  object,  while  Mr.  Morris  the  first  lieutenant,  Mr.  Alwyn  the  mas- 
ter, and  Mr.  Bush,  the  lieutenant  of  marines,  sprang  upon  the  taffrail 
of  the  Constitution  with  a  similar  intention.  Both  sides  now  suffered 
by  the  closeness  of  the  musketry ;  the  English  much  the  most,  however. 
Mr.  Morris  was  shot  through  the  body,  but  maintained  his  post,  the 
bullet  fortunately  missing  the  vitals.  Mr.  Alwyn  was  wounded 
in  the  shoulder,  and  Mr.  Bush  fell  dead  by  a  bullet  through  the  head. 
It  being  found  impossible  for  either  party  to  board,  in  the  face  of  such 
a  fire  and  with  the  heavy  sea  that  was  on,  the  sails  were  filled,  and- 
just  as  the  Constitution  shot  ahead,  the  foremast  of  the  enemy  fell, 
carrying  down  with  it  his  mainmast,  and  leaving  him  wallowing  in 
the  trough  of  the  sea,  a  helpless  wreck. 

"The  Constitution  now  hauled  aboard  her  tacks,  ran  off  a  short 
distance,  secured  her  masts,  and  rove  new  rigging.  At  seven  she  wore 
round,  and  taking  a  favorable  position  for  raking,  a  jack  that  had 
been  kept  flying  on  the  stump  of  the  mizzen-mast  was  lowered.  Mr. 
George  Campbell  Read,  the  third  lieutenant,  was  sent  on  board  the 
prize,  and  the  boat  soon  returned  with  the  report  that  the  captured 
vessel  was  the  Guerriere,  38,  Captain  Dacres,  one  of  the  vessels  that 
had  so  lately  chased  the  Constitution  off  New  York." 

The  whole  period  between  the  time  when  the 
Guerriere  began  her  fire  and  that  when  she  hauled 
down  her  flag  was  about  two  hours,  but  Cooper  says 
that  in  truth  the  battle  was  decided  in  a  quarter  of 
the  time. 

Captain  Hull  was  obliged  to  burn  his  prize,  as  she 
was  dismasted  and  indeed  sinking.  He  returned  at 
once  to  Boston.  It  is  impossible  to  undertake  to 
follow  in  detail  the  history  of  the  Constitution 
through  the  war.  Cooper  recapitulates  it  by  saying : 

"  Yet,  in  the  course  of  two  years  and  nine  months,  this  ship  had 
been  in  three  actions,  had  been  twice  critically  chased,  and  had  cap- 
tured five  vessels  of  war,  two  of  which  were  frigates,  and  a  third 


THE   WAR    OF  1812.  319 

frigate-built.  In  all  her  service,  as  well  before  Tripoli  as  in  this  war, 
her  good  fortune  was  remarkable.  She  never  was  dismasted,  never 
got  ashore,  nor  scarcely  ever  suffered  any  of  the  usual  accidents  of 
the  sea.  Though  so  often  in  battle,  no  very  serious  slaughter  took 
place  on  board  of  her.  One  of  her  commanders  was  wounded,  and 
four  of  her  lieutenants  had  been  killed,  two  on  her  own  decks,  and  two 
in  the  Intrepid  ;  but,  on  the  whole,  her  entire  career  had  been  that  of 
what  is  usually  called  a  "  lucky  ship."  Her  fortune,  however,,  may 
perhaps  be  explained  in  the  simple  fact  that  she  had  always  been  well 
commanded.  In  her  two  last  cruises  she  had  probably  possessed  as 
fine  a  crew  as  ever  manned  a  frigate.  They  were  principally  New 
England  men,  and  it  has  been  said  of  them  that  they  were  almost 
qualified  to  fight  the  ship  without  her  officers." 


CHAPTER   XXL 

{ 

THE    CIVIL    WAR. 

IT  ought  to  be  remembered,  to  the  honor  of  the 
fathers  of  Massachusetts,  that  the}''  saw  the 
wrong  of  the  African  slave-trade.  As  early  as  1645 
the  General  Court  ordered  the  return  to  Africa  of  a 
slave  who  had  been  brought  thence.  In  the  next 
year  they  sent  back  two  others.  Their  vote  stands 
as  follows : 

"  The  General  Court,  conceiving  themselves  bound  by  the  first 
opportunity  to  bear  witness  against  the  heinous  and  crying  sin  of  man- 
stealing,  as  also  to  prescribe  such  timely  redress  for  what  is  past  and 
such  a  law  for  the  future  as  may  sufficiently  deter  all  others  belonging 
to  us  to  have  to  do  in  such  vile  and  most  odious  courses,  justly  abhorred 
of  all  good  and  just  men,  do  order  that  the  negro  interpreter,  with 
others  unlawfully  taken,  be  at  the  first  opportunity  (at  the  charge  of 
the  country)  sent  to  his  native  country  of  Guinea,  and  a  letter  with 
him  of  the  indignation  of  the  Court  thereabouts  and  justice  hereof, 
desiring  our  honored  Governor  would  please  put  this  order  in 
execution." 

But  this  conscientious  determination  did  not  last 
long.  The  slave-trade  was  an  established  branch  of 
English  commerce  and  an  important  one.  Slaves 
were  brought  to  Massachusetts  as  to  other  planta- 
tions. And  in  and  after  Philip's  War  captive  In- 
dians were  sent  to  the  West  Indies  and  sold,  on 
account  of  the  colony. 


THE   CIVIL    WAR.  321 

Judge  Sewall,  the  same  whose  diary  for  his  lifetime  is 
the  authority  which  gives  the  most  local  light  on  the 
history  of  the  colony,  made  in  his  way  very  vigorous 
protests  against  the  injustice  of  slavery.  His  book, 
"  The  Selling  of  Joseph,"  may  be  said  to  be  the  first 
anti-slavery  tract.  But,  as  he  implies  himself,  his 
words  were  as  the  voice  of  one  crying  in  a  wilder- 
ness. The  newspapers  show,  until  1780,  that  negroes 
were  occasionally  bought  and  sold.  The  Massachu- 
setts merchants,  as  the  eighteenth  century  went  on, 
were  engaged  to  a  certain  extent  in  the  slave  trade. 
For  some  reason,  the  harbor  of  Bristol  in  Narragan- 
sett  Bay,  was  found  the  most  convenient  place  for 
the  shipments  of  rum  and  iron,  for  which  these 
negroes  were  bought  on  the  African  coast,  and  the 
cargoes  were  generally  sent  to  the  West  Indies  or  to 
Virginia.  But  a  certain  proportion  of  the  blacks 
thus  obtained  were  brought  to  New  England.  As 
the  reader  saw,  for  instance,  the  slave  Tituba,  whose 
wild  Voiidoo  superstition  brought  on  the  Salem  witch- 
craft, came  from  Barbadoes  as  a  family  servant 
in  Mr.  Parris's  household.  Tituba  was  what  in 
the  islands  is  called  a  Mestiza,  half  Indian  and 
half  negro  in  her  blood.  Mr.  Weeden,  in  his  Eco- 
nomic History,  has  shown  that  Peter  Faneuil,  who 
gave  to  Boston  the  Cradle  of  Liberty,  was  himself 
largely  engaged  in  the  slave-trade,  and  that,  at  the 
time  of  his  death,  a  vessel  of  his,  named  in  sad  irony 
The  Jolly  Bachelor,  was  on  the  African  coast,  tak- 
ing on  board  her  cargo  of  men.  It  seems  easy  to 
show  that,  in  the  first  half  of  the  century,  in  the 


322  THE  CIVIL    WAR. 

face  of  Sewall's  protest,  in  the  face  of  the  protests 
of  such  men  as  John  Eliot  and  Gookin,  there  was  no 
profound  hatred  of  slavery  in  Massachusetts. 

But  the  various  census  returns  show  that  there 
were  very  few  slaves  in  comparison  to  the  great  body 
of  the  white  population.  They  were  mostly  house- 
hold servants  ;  occasionally  they  were  landholders, 
and  they  seem  to  have  engaged  in  any  industry  in 
which  white  people  would  engage.  They  were 
fishermen,  they  were  farmers,  and  they  were  me- 
chanics in  the  various  grades.  When  the  Revolu- 
tion came,  Crispus  Attucks,  who  was.  partly  Indian 
and  partly  negro  in  blood,  was  one  of  the  mar- 
tyrs of  the  Boston  Massacre.  It  was  a  negro  who 
contrived  the  attack  on  Percy's  supply-train,  which 
cut  it  off  in  Menotomy,  now  Arlington.  This 
was  the  first  military  victory  of  the  Revolution. 
And  it  was  a  negro  in  the  intrenchments  of 
Bunker  Hill  wrho  fired  the  shot  which  killed  Major 
Pitcairn. 

With  the  new  discussion  of  the  rights  of  man  which 
came  in  with  the  protests  against  the  Stamp  Act  and 
similar  legislation,  it  was  impossible  that  there  should 
not  be  serious  consideration  of  the  condition  of  the 
negro.  The  condition  of  slavery  was  wholly  foreign 
to  the  doctrine  maintained  by  the  advanced  men 
among  the  patriots.  In  the  Congress  which  declared 
independence,  the  New  England  members  would 
gladly  have  inserted  a  clause  protesting  against 
slavery  and  the  slave-trade.  Such  a  clause  is  in  the 
original  draft  made  by  Jefferson,  and  was  struck  out 


THE   CIVIL    WAR.  323 

only  to  meet  the  susceptibilities  of  some  of  the 
Southern  colonies.  As  one  and  another  effort  was 
made  toward  establishing  a  State  constitution,  after 
Howe  and  his  army  had  been  driven  from  Boston,  it 
was  well  understood  that  the  inconsistency  of  negro 
slavery  was  to  be  removed.  And  accordingly,  under 
the  intelligent  and  vigorous  lead  of  John  Lowell  of 
Xewbury,  the  Bill  of  Rights  adopted  in  the  Constitu- 
tion of  1780,  begins  with  the  words,  "  All  men  are 
born  free  and  equal,  and  have  certain  natural,  essen- 
tial, and  inalienable  rights."  As  early  as  1769, 
it  would  seem  that  the  provincial  courts  had  held 
that  no  person  born  in  Massachusetts  was  a  slave, 
although  he  might  be  the  child  of  a  slave.  The 
passage  in  the  Bill  of  Rights  goes  farther,  and  states 
the  freedom  of  all  men.  Relying  upon  this  clause, 
three  actions  were  at  once  brought  in  the  Massachu- 
setts courts,  looking  to  the  recovery  of  freedom. 
The  first  was  a  simple  action  of  trespass,  in  which 
Quork  Walker  had  been  beaten  by  Caldwell,  who 
had  been  his  master.  The  defendant  asserted  the 
right  of  a  master  to  beat  his  slave.  The  plaintiff's 
reply  was  that  he  was  a  free  man,  and  not  the  proper 
negro  slave  of  the  defendant.  This  was  the  issue 
brought  before  the  jury.  The  counsel  on  both  sides 
were  men  of  distinction  at  the  bar  of  the  State. 
The  brief  of  Walker's  counsel  is  very  curious.  The 
argument  rests  on  the  incompatibility  of  slavery 
with  our  condition  as  a  people.  The  brief  closes  by 
conjuring  the  jury  "  to  give  such  a  verdict  now  as 
will  stand  the  test  when  we  shall  be  arraigned  at 


324  THE   CIVIL    WAR. 

one  common  bar,  shall  have  one  common  Judge,  be 
tried  by  one  common  jury,  and  condemned  or 
acquitted  by  one  common  law  —  by  the  Gospel,  the 
'  perfect  law  of  liberty.'  This  cause  will  then  be 
tried  again,  and  your  verdict  will  there  be  tried. 
Therefore,  gentlemen  of  the  jury,  let  me  conjure  you 
to  give  such  a  verdict  now  as  will  stand  this  test, 
and  be  approved  by  your  own  minds  in  the  last 
moments  of  your  existence,  and  by  your  Judge  in  the 
last  day. 

"  It  will  then  be  tried  by  the  laws  of  reason  and 
revelation.  Is  it  not  a  law  of  nature  that  men  are 
equal  ?  And  is  not  a  law  of  nature  a  law  of  God  ? 
Is  there  not  a  law  of  God,  then,  against  slavery  ?  If 
there  is  not  a  law  of  man  establishing  it,  there  is  no 
difficulty.  If  there  is,  then  the  great  difficulty  is  to 
determine  which  law  you  ought  to  obey.  And  if 
you  shall  have  the  same  ideas  as  I  have  of  present 
and  future  things,  you  will  obey  the  former."  The 
jury  decided  that  Quork  Walker  was  a  free  man, 
and  in  that  decision  slavery  was  abolished  in 
Massachusetts. 

But  the  prejudices  of  slavery  did  not  die  with  this 
decision.  The  negroes  of  the  State,  from  that  time 
for  two  generations,  used  to  celebrate  the  anniver- 
sary of  that  decision.  But  in  that  celebration  they 
had  but  little  sympathy  or  co-operation  from  their 
white  brethren.  I  can  myself  remember  that  when 
Lydia  Maria  Child  published  her  book  to  which  she 
gave  the  title,  "  An  Appeal  in  behalf  of  that  class  of 
Americans  called  Africans,"  it  was  received,  not  so 


THE   CIVIL    WAR.  325 

much  with  indignation  among  her  friends  as  with 
the  feeling  that  she  had  gone  crazy.  I  was  myself 
at  that  time  a  school-boy  six  years  of  age.  I 
remember  the  amusement  and  amazement  with  which 
we  saw  the  bill  announcing  the  book,  posted  in  the 
window  of  the  "Corner  Book-Store,"  which  still 
stands  at  the  foot  of  School  Street.  Our  boyish 
indignation  at  the  suggestion  that  a  negro  was  an 
"  American,"  was  as  vehement  as  could  be  that  of 
any  Southern  Bourbon  to-day.  The  anti-slavery 
prophets  had  no  harder  soil  to  work  in  than  in  the 
mercantile  classes  of  the  Massachusetts  sea-board. 
But  time  was  with  them,  and  the  truth  was  with 
them,  and  these  are  great  allies. 

Against  them  was  what  was  called  the  dependence 
of  the  cotton  manufacture  at  that  time  on  the  cotton 
crop  of  the  South.  The  Southern  leaders  had  con- 
ceived that  "  Cotton  was  King."  And  it  cannot  be 
doubted  that  a  certain  disposition  existed  in  the 
governing  circle  of  Massachusetts  to  palliate  the 
difficulties  which  slavery  brought  into  the  national 
affairs,  because  it  was  convenient  for  Massachusetts 
to  be  on  good  terms  with  the  cotton-raising  States. 
It  was  also  true  that  under  the  strict  construction  of 
the  State  constitution  which  the  Democratic  party 
had  always  affected  to  sustain,  no  one  State  could 
interfere  with  the  internal  policy  of  another.  And 
the  plea  was  made,  no  doubt  fairly,  that  any  effort 
on  the  part  of  Northern  men  to  bring  about  eman- 
cipation in  Southern  communities  was  an  unfair 
interference  in  other  people's  business.  It  is  to  be 


320  THE   CIVIL    WAR. 

noted,  indeed,  that  the  foreign  orators  who  came 
from  England  to  instruct  us  on  these  subjects  were 
never  cordially  received.  Only  the  most  enthusias- 
tic abolitionists  overlooked  the  fact  that  Englishmen 
had  better  take  care  of  England,  and  Americans  of 
America.  In  like  fashion,  the  dominant  feeling  for 
a  generation  in  Massachusetts  was  that  Carolinians 
had  better  take  care  of  Carolina,  and  Massachusetts 
men  of  Massachusetts. 

All  this  changed,  —  as  the  climate  changes  when  a 
south  wind  comes  in  after  a  northeast  gale  has  been 
blowing.  It  changed  in  a  moment  when  the  South- 
era  leaders  undertook  the  management  of  the 
unsettled  territories  of  the  West,  which  belonged  to 
the  nation  at  large.  The  State  of  Massachusetts 
protested  to  the  last  against  the  adoption  of  what 
was  called  the  "  Missouri  Compromise,"  *  in  1820. 
By  this  act  all  lands  south  of  the  parallel  of  latitude 
which  marks  the  southern  line  of  the  State  of 
Missouri  might  be  settled  by  slaveholders  with  slaves 
in  the  future,  but  all  lands  north  of  it  were  closed 
against  slave  immigration.  When,  in  1854,  the  mad- 
ness of  a  few  men  at  the  South  t  led  Congress  to  pass 
what  was  then  known  as  the  "  Nebraska  Act,"  open- 
ing territories  north  of  the  compromise  line  to  settle- 
ment by  slaveholders  with  slaves,  there  was  an  end 
of  all  pretense  that  the  slaveholders  of  the  country 
confined  their  legislation  to  local  boundaries.  And 

*  It  is  interesting  to  observe  that  Daniel  Webster  led  this  protest,  a  fact  which  is 
not  alluded  to  in  Mr.  Curtis'slife  of  him. 

t  Mr.  Edward  Everett  used  to  say  that  nine  men  at  the  South  were  responsible  for 
the  Civil  War. 


THE   CIVIL    WAR.  327 

from  that  moment  it  might  be  said  that  any  one 
man  in  Massachusetts  was  as  much  pledged  as  any 
other  to  see  that  slavery  was  not  extended  over  new 
regions.  Virtually,  old  party  lines  disappeared  in 
this  matter ;  and  though  bigoted  partisans  might  be 
found  who  threw  in  their  lot  with  the  extreme 
Southern  view,  the  drift  of  Massachusetts  was 
entirely  in  the  opposite  direction.  Mr.  Eli  Thayer 
at  once  introduced  into  the  legislature  of  Massachu- 
setts his  plan  for  colonizing  Kansas.  That  plan 
took  form,  and  in  August,  1854,  under  the  lead  of 
Charles  Robinson,  a  Massachusetts  man,  the  city  of 
Lawrence,  Kansas,  was  founded  by  forty  or  fifty 
emigrants,  and  was  the  first  point  established  as  a. 
town  in  that  State.  From  that  period  till  1860,  the 
State  of  Kansas,  made  up  of  freemen  who  had  gone 
there  from  New  England  and  from  the  northwestern 
States,  simply  and  purely  with  the  view  of  fighting 
this  matter  through,  was  the  battle  ground  of  the 
national  controversy.  In  1861,  as  soon  as  President 
Lincoln  had  been  chosen  to  the  presidency  on  the 
issue  then  raised,  this  contest  assumed  national 
proportions. 

After  the  Democratic  party  had  held  its  conven- 
tion in  Charleston,  in  which  Jefferson  Davis  was  at 
last  nominated  as  its  candidate  for  the  presidency, 
General  Butler  of  Massachusetts,  who  had  attended 
that  convention,  waited  upon  John  Albion  Andrew, 
who  was  the  governor  of  Massachusetts,  chosen  by 
the  Free-Soil  party.  The  visit  was  a  confidential 
one,  but  the  veil  of  secrecy  has,  of  course,  been 


328  THE  CIVIL    WAR. 

long  lifted  from  it.  These  men  were  political  oppo- 
nents, removed  as  far  as  possible  from  each  other, 
but  they  were  both  Massachusetts  men.  General 
Butler  called  upon  the  Governor  to  say  to  him  that 
he  was  sure,  from  what  he  had  seen  and  heard  in 
Charleston,  that  it  was  the  intention  of  the  Southern 
leaders  to  bring  the  matter  to  the  arbitrament  of 
war.  He  thought  that  the  Northern  States  should 
not  be  unprovided  for  such  an  emergency.  Acting 
upon  his  advice,  Governor  Andrew  sent  a  message 
to  the  legislature,  asking  that  it  might  be  considered 
in  secrecy.  And  it  was  so  considered,  in  a  secrecy 
which  was  curiously  well  maintained.  One  is  re- 
minded of  the  old  days  when  the  town  of  Paxton 
defied  George  III.  and  bought  powder  for  war 
against  England,  when  one  remembers  that  the  result 
of  this  secret  conference  was  an  appropriation  of 
twenty  thousand  dollars,  to  be  placed  in  the  hands 
of  the  governor,  that  he  might  prepare  the  militia 
of  the  State  for  immediate  movement.  With  that 
twenty  thousand  dollars  Governor  Andrew  pur- 
chased such  matters  as  were  supposed  most  necessary. 
Among  other  things,  he  purchased  what  were  for  a 
long  time  known  as  "  Andrew's  overcoats  "  —  a  few 
thousand  coats,  such  as  were  used  by  the  infantry  of 
the  United  States  army.  The  preparation  was  made 
none  too  soon.  On  the  ninth  day  of  April,  1861, 
Fort  Sumter  in  Charleston  Harbor  was  fired  upon  by 
the  troops  of  the  State  of  Carolina.  President  Lin- 
coln summoned  to  ninety  days'  service  fifty  thousand 
militia  from  the  Northern  States.  Governor  Andrew 


THE  CIVIL    WAR.  329 

instantly  issued  his  proclamation  ordering  into  ser- 
vice the  fifth,  sixth,  and  seventh  regiments  of  the 
Massachusetts  militia.  The  ranks  of  these  regiments 
were  at  once  filled  by  eager  volunteers.  Men  who 
were  determined  to  go,  paid  people  who  had  the  priv- 
ilege of  belonging  to  these  regiments,  for  the  right 
to  take  their  places  as  substitutes.  On  the  eight- 
eenth of  April,  the  Sixth  regiment,  in  answer  to 
Governor  Andrew's  proclamation,  was  mustered 
into  service  on  Boston  Common,  in  twenty-four 
hours  after  the  proclamation  was  issued.  As  it 
passed  through  Baltimore,  on  the  nineteenth  of  April, 
the  historical  day  in  the  fortunes  of  Massachusetts,* 
it  was  attacked  by  the  mob  of  Baltimore,  and  two  of 
its  number  were  killed. 

"Massachusetts  shed  her  choicest  blood, 
To  wash  the  streets  of  Baltimore." 

Men  observed,  of  course,  that  the  Sixth  regiment 
was  the  regiment  which  represented  the  historical 
Middlesex  County,  from  which  met  the  regiments 
who  forced  Concord  Bridge  on  that  memorable 
morning,  eighty-six  years  before. 

*  "  The  cycle  of  New  England  is  eighty-six  years.  In  the  spring  of  1603,  the  family 
of  Stuart  ascended  the  throne  of  England.  At  the  end  of  eighty-six  years,  Massachu- 
setts having  been  betrayed  to  her  enemies  by  her  most  eminent  and  trusted  citizen,  Joseph 
Dudley,  the  people,  on  the  nineteenth  day  of  April,  1689,  committed  their  prisoner, 
the  deputy  of  the  Stuart  king,  to  the  fort  in  Boston  which  he  had  built  to  overawe 
them.  Another  eighty-six  years  passed,  and  Massachusetts  had  been  betrayed  to  her 
enemies  by  her  most  eminent  and  trusted  citizen,  Thomas  Hutchinson,  when,  at  Lexing- 
ton and  Concord,  on  the  nineteenth  of  April,  1775,  her  farmers  struck  the  first  blow  in 
the  war  of  American  independence.  Another  eighty-six  years  ensued,  and  a  domination 
of  slaveholders,  more  odious  than  that  of  Stuarts  or  of  G  iclphs,  had  been  fastened 
upon  her,  when,  on  the  nineteenth  of  April,  1861,  the  streets  ol  Baltimore  were  stained 
by  the  blood  of  her  soldiers  on  their  way  to  uphold  liberty  and  law  by  the  rescue  of  the 
national  capital."  J-  G-  PALFREY. 


330  THE   CIVIL    WAR. 

There  is  an  anecdote  worth  preserving  of  the  ar- 
rival of  the  Sixth  regiment  in  Washington.  Even 
leading  men  in  Washington  were  in  doubt  what 
might  be  the  immediate  issue  of  the  president's  proc- 
lamation. As  it  happened  on  the  afternoon  of  the 
nineteenth,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  surrounded  by  a  few 
personal  and  political  friends  in  the  White  House. 
Among  them  was  Charles  Sumner,  who  had,  in  the 
previous  month,  been  pressing  with  quite  as  much 
pertinacity  as  Mr.  Lincoln  liked,  the  name  of  one 
and  another  citizen  of  Massachusetts  for  appoint- 
ment in  the  diplomatic  service  abroad.  Mr.  Lincoln 
had  said  to  him  at  their  last  interview,  "  Now,  Mr. 
Sumner,  I  hope  I  shall  not  have  to  hear  from  Mas- 
sachusetts again."  Mr.  Sumner  was  fond  of  saying 
afterwards,  that  when  the  Sixth  Massachusetts,  clad 
in  Governor  Andrew's  overcoats,  marched  up  Penn- 
sylvania Avenue,  "  company  front,"  he  said  to  Mr. 
Lincoln  who  watched  them  as  they  passed  the  White 
House,  "  Mr.  President,  you  are  glad  to  hear  from 
Massachusetts  to-day." 

Some  companies  of  Pennsylvania  militia  had  al- 
ready arrived  in  Washington,  but  the  Sixth  Massa- 
chusetts was  the  first  regiment  to  appear  in  uniform 
and  military  order.  It  was  at  once  quartered  in  the 
Capitol.  It  may  be  said,  in  passing,  that  the  men  took 
the  unused  vaults  under  the  terraces  to  make  the 
ovens  in  which  they  baked  their  bread. 

From  that  moment  the  State  gave  itself  to  the 
war,  with  the  eagerness  to  which  a  people  trained  to 
business  carries  forward  any  new  enterprise  which 


THE   CIVIL    WAR.  331 

it  takes  in  hand.  Andrew,  who  had  been  known  as 
an  idealist,  who  had  been  suspected  by  the  people  in 
the  military  interests  of  the  Commonwealth  as  being 
one  who  would  be  hostile  to  the  militia,  won  his  title 
as  the  u  great  war  governor."  The  State  furnished  for 
the  national  army  sixty-seven  regiments  ;  and  for  the 
national  navy,  which  was  called  suddenly  into  exist- 
ence, furnished  vessels  and  seamen  as  a  commercial 
State  should  —  vastly  beyond  the  proportion  of  any 
other  State  in  the  Union. 

No  young  man  could  hold  his  place  in  society  in 
the  State  unless  he  enlisted  in  one  service  or  the 
other,  or  was  connected  with  some  branch  of  the 
;-dministration  which  was  at  work  for  the  army. 
The  Sanitary  Commission  and  the  Christian  Com- 
mission enlisted  the  efforts  of  every  woman  in  the 
State,  and  the  closest  ties  were  formed  between  the 
regiments  in  the  field  and  those  who  staid  at  home. 
Twice  a  day  the  journals  published  accounts  of  what 
was  going  on  '•  at  the  front."  Literally,  there  was 
not  a  State  in  the  whole  field  of  the  war  but  some 
Massachusetts  soldier  now  lies  buried  there,  and 
some  Massachusetts  woman  has  worked  there,  for 
the  teaching  of  the  ignorant,  for  the  care  of  the  sick, 
for  the  consolation  of  the  dying,  or  for  the  burial  of 
the  dead.  The  catalogue  of  Harvard  College  shows 
that  of  the  class  of  1861,  numbering  seventy-nine 
persons,  fifty-four  served  in  some  capacity  in  the  army. 
Of  the  class  of  1862,  there  were  ninety-six  persons 
in  all,  of  whom  thirty-eight  served  in  the  army.  Of 
the  class  of  1863,  there  were  one  hundred  and  seven- 


382  THE  CIVIL    WAR. 

teen  persons  in  all,  of  whom  forty-eight  served  in  the 
army.  These  figures  are  convenient  to  cite.  But 
the  graduates  of  Harvard  College,  of  course,  represent 
the  whole  nation,  and  foreign  countries  also.  Of 
the  young  men  who  came  to  the  army  age  in  Massa- 
chusetts, a  very  much  larger  proportion  than  is 
thus  indicated  entered  one  or  the  other  of  the  two 
services. 

Within  the  space  permitted  by  the  plan  of  this 
book,  it  is  impossible  to  attempt  details  as  to  the 
victories  won,  or  the  defeats  incurred  by  the  sons, 
and  daughters  of  Massachusetts  in  those  years.  It 
was  interesting  to  see  that  all  the  drain  made  on 
the  numbers  of  her  young  men  by  the  requisitions 
of  the  war,  did  not  sensibly  affect  the  numbers  of 
the  population.  The  industries  of  the  State  went 
forward,  only  quickened  by  the  demands  of  the  war,, 
excepting  in  the  department  of  foreign  trade.  Now 
the  labor  market  feels  the  law  of  supply  and  demand 
as  does  any  other  market.  So  soon  as  men  are  with- 
drawn on  one  side  they  rush  in  on  another.  By  the 
demand  for  working  hands  to  fill  the  places  of 
young  men  who  went  to  the  army,  the  emigration 
into  the  State  from  Canada  was  materially  enlarged. 
From  that  time  to  this  it  has  increased  almost 
steadily. 

In  a  certain  sense  it  may  be  said  that  the  victories 
of  the  war  at  the  front  were  won  in  the  workshops 
at  home.  A  single  shoe-factory  would  supply  in  a  day 
more  shoes  than  a  whole  regiment  would  wear.  The 
machine  shops  and  foundries  were  capable  of  the 


THE   CIVIL    WAR.  333 

best  work  needed  for  improved  artillery  and  other 
munitions  of  war.  And  it  proved,  for  the  thou- 
sandth time,  that  a  nation  which  means  to  be  fit  for 
war,  must  develop  on  every  line  the  processes  of 
manufacture. 

Since  the  war,  the  population  and  prosperity  of 
the  State  have  increased  more  rapidly  than  ever. 
Her  numbers  have  nearly  doubled  in  these  twenty- 
five  years ;  her  wealth  has  almost  quadrupled.  The 
motto  on  her  shield,  taken  from  Philip  Sidney,  is  : 

"  Ense  petit  placidam  sub  libertate  quietem." 

She  has,  in  truth,  enjoyed  the  fruits  of  peace 
which  her  sons  fought  and  prayed  for  in  the  trials 
of  war. 


CHAPTER   XXII. 

MANUFACTURES. 

IjWERY  one  rejoiced  at  the  end  of  the  Revolution, 
J-^  But  to  Massachusetts  peace  brought  more  im- 
mediate distress  than  war  had  done  for  some  years. 
She  was  in  debt,  she  was  terribly  in  debt,  and  the  debt 
was  to  be  paid.  Her  government  was  but  just  es- 
tablished, and  no  experiment  had  shown  how  deep- 
seated  was  the  idea  of  loyalty  to  government,  when 
there  was  no  longer  left  any  loyalty  to  a  king  or  a 
royal  family.  The  enormous  profits  brought  in  by 
successful  privateering  suddenly  ceased,  and  no  new 
trade  had  taken  its  place.  As  has  been  said  in  a 
previous  chapter,  it  was  from  the  pressure  of  taxation, 
principally  taxation  upon  farms,  which  resulted  from 
such  a  state  of  things,  that  what  is  known  as 
Shay's  Rebellion  broke  forth. 

Some  persons  were  prosecuted  for  complicity  in 
this  revolt,  if  it  deserves  such  a  name,  but  the  sen- 
tences were  very  light,  and  matters  soon  dropped 
into  a  quiet  condition.  Meanwhile,  the  New  Eng- 
land passion  for  industry  told  ;  and  this  is  the  re- 
mark to  be  always  borne  in  mind  in  the  history  of 
two  hundred  and  ninety  years,  that  the  people  of 
New  England  are  always  doing  something,  so  that 

334 


MAN  UFA  CTURES.  335 

some  result  of  Uieir  endeavor  is  to  be  found  at  the 
end  of  the  year.  There  may  be  accidental  complica- 
tions, such  as  brought  about  the  terrible  misery 
which  led  to  Shay's  insurrection  ;  but  all  the  time 
the  great  reservoir  is  filling  up,  and  sooner  or  later 
the  result  of  such  industry  shows  itself.  There  has 
probably  never  been  a  year,  from  1630  to  this  time, 
when  the  State  of  Massachusetts  was  not  richer  in 
real  wealth,  than  she  was  the  year  before. 

The  difficulty  which  led  to  Shay's  insurrection 
may  be  accounted  for  in  part  by  the  false  position 
in  which  every  one  of  the  thirteen  States  was  placed 
at  the  end  of  the  war,  of  nominally  belonging  to  a 
nation  called  the  United  States,  while  each  one  of 
these  little  communities  was  in  fact  maintaining  an 
independent  government.  But  this  was  an  inde- 
pendent government  without  an  organized  army  and 
without  an  organized  navy.  It  was  also  a  govern- 
ment which  was  commercially  and  financially  in 
rivalry  with  every  other  State  of  the  twelve  to 
which  independence  had  been  unwillingly  granted 
by  Great  Britain.  As  between  the  ports  of  Boston, 
of  Newport,  and  of  the  city  of  New  York,  for  in- 
stance, there  was  a  rivalry  of  merchants,  each 
anxious  to  have  the  import  duties  as  low  as  possible. 
There  was  a  temptation  to  the  legislatures  of  Massa- 
chusetts, Rhode  Island  and  New  York,  in  each  case, 
to  underbid  the  other  States  in  the  duties  which  they 
should  lay  on  foreign  articles.  Each  State  even  had 
import  duties  on  articles  brought  from  what  we  now 
call  sister  States.  All  the  difficulties  of  tariffs  were- 


336  MANUFA  CTUEES. 

thus  experienced  in  the  most  exaggerated  proportions. 
Meanwhile  the  central  government  of  the  United 
States  in  Congress  had  not,  as  it  was  said  at  the 
time,  money  enough  to  pay  for  the  quills  with  which 
its  resolutions  were  written.  It  was  with  difficulty 
that  a  quorum  could  be  kept  of  .the  members  of  Con- 
gress. Congress  then  could  only  advise  the  States 
to  give  it  a  revenue,  and  every  effort  which  was 
made  in  this  direction  in  fact  proved  unsuccessful. 

With  the  establishment  of  the  Federal  constitution, 
which  went  into  effect  in  March,  1789,  all  this  was 
changed.  There  is  scarcely  to  be  found  in  history,  — 
perhaps  there  is  not  to  be  found  in  history, —  any 
instance  in  which  a  single  political  determination 
brought  about  at  once  such  immediate  prosperity  to 
all  who  were  engaged.  The  fishermen  of  Massachu- 
setts, the  men  who  had  been  engaged  in  privateering, 
the  merchants  who  were  already  trying  experiments 
for  new  trade  in  the  Pacific  Ocean  and  in  the  East 
Indies,  now  knew  what  they  had  to  rely  upon. 
The  maritime  commerce  of  Massachusetts,  therefore, 
developed  with  great  rapidity.  Maine  and  Massa- 
chusetts were  still  successful  ship-building  States ;  it 
may  be  doubted  whether  ships  of  the  same  quality 
could  be  built  so  cheaply  anywhere  else  in  the  world. 
Up  to  the  outbreak  of  the  Revolution,  the  manufac- 
ture of  ships,  if  that  word  may  be  used,  was  probably 
the  largest  manufacture  in  Massachusetts  ;  now  that 
Massachusetts  was  independent  of  England,  the 
English  navigation  laws  forbade  the  sale  of  ships  in 
English  ports  with  quite  the  same  ease  as  in  former 


MANUFA  C  T  UltES.  337 

times.  But  the  harbors  of  the  world  were  open  to 
Massachusetts  ships,  so  long  as  the  government  of 
the  United  States  kept  out  of  the  complications  of 
European  politics.  And,  with  the  enterprise  of  a 
race  of  seamen  who  had  Norse  blood  in  their  veins,  the 
commerce  of  Massachusetts  sought  all  those  harbors. 
There  was  a  temporary  break  to  this  prosperity  when, 
in  the  administration  of  John  Adams,  there  was  dan- 
ger of  a  war  with  France,  in  which,  indeed,  some 
vessels  were  seized  by  the  navies  of  each  nation. 
But  this  was  but  a  ripple  on  the  current  of  a  general 
prosperity  in  the  mercantile  affairs  of  the  seaports. 
Massachusetts  young  men  flocked  into  maritime  life  ; 
it  often  happened  that  by  the  time  a  young  fellow 
was  of  age  he  was  in  command  of  a  merchantman, 
which  was  sent  off  on  a  voyage  around  the  world. 
In  those  days,  much  of  the  responsibility  was  thrown 
upon  the  captain,  even  as  soon  as  he  left  his  port. 
He  followed,  of  course,  the  orders  of  his  employer 
as  well  as  he  could,  but  he  would  be  often  obliged  to 
use  his  own  intelligence  to  supply  the  deficiencies  in 
those  orders.  Under  such  circumstances  the  North- 
west trade,  as  it  was  called,  was  created.  Vessels 
from  Salem  went  to  the  western  coast  of  North 
America  ;  with  the  manufactures  of  America  and 
Europe,  such  as  Indians  wanted,  they  bought  the 
furs  which  they  found  ready  ;  they  carried  these  furs 
to  China,  and  from  China,  with  cargoes  of  tea,  silk, 
and  other  Eastern  goods,  they  came  back  to  the 
civilization  of  Europe  or  America.  It  might  happen 
that  this  cargo  was  sold  in  European  ports,  and  a 


338  MANUFACTURES. 

cargo  of  European  goods  was  taken  back  to  Salem  ; 
or  it  might  happen  that  the  ship  was  itself  sold  at  a 
high  price,  and  in  that  case  the  captain  and  seamen 
returned  to  their  home  to  follow  a  similar  adventure 
elsewhere. 

All  such  commerce,  of  course,  required  that  the 
ports  of  the  world  should  be  open  to  the  adventure. 
Now,  from  the  time  of  the  execution  of  Louis  XVL 
until  the  fall  of  Napoleon  in  1813,  the  powers  of 
Europe  succeeded  in  keeping  most  of  the  time  at  war. 
An  English  ship  could  not  enter  a  French  port,  a 
French  ship  could  not  enter  an  English  port.  Often 
it  happened  that  all  the  ports  of  Europe  were  closed 
by  blockades,  real  or  nominal,  imposed  by  one  party 
or  the  other.  If  a  real  blockade  were  maintained, 
an  American  vessel  could  enter  no  more  than  any 
other ;  but,  from  the  beginning,  the  American  govern- 
ment took  the  ground  that  the  blockade  must  be  a 
real  blockade  ;  that  our  vessels  would  not  respect  what 
were  called  paper  blockades.  And,  substantially 
this  ground  was  yielded  in  the  wars  of  the  various 
powers  of  the  world.  In  large  measure,  therefore, 
the  extensive  maritime  commerce  of  the  world  fell 
into  the  hands  of  the  neutral  nations,  and  there  was 
no  neutral  nation  which  could  compare  with  the 
newly-j?orn  nation  of  the  United  States  in  the  skill  of 
its  seamen  or  in  the  character  of  its  ships.  Noth- 
ing more  healthy  and  satisfactory  could  have  been 
devised  by  the  wisest  intelligence  for  the  development 
of  the  prosperity  of  the  nation. 

It  was,  therefore,  a  great  misfortune  to  the  rising 


MANUFA  C  T  URES.  339 

nation  that  the  government  of  the  United  States, 
after  the  first  twelve  years,  fell  into  the  hands  of  the 
Southern  States,  and  that  the  leaders  of  the  South- 
ern States  had  no  wish  to  see  this  spirit  of  mari- 
time adventure  encouraged.  An  unfortunate  rivalry 
sprang  up  between  what  was  called  the  planting 
interest  and  what  was  called  the  shipping  interest  — 
a  rivalry  in  which  the  question  of  African  slavery 
really  existed  latent,  though  it  was  scarcely  alluded 
to  in  the  discussions.  Mr.  Jefferson,  who  had  won 
the  enthusiastic  admiration  of  the  world  by  the 
authorship  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  had 
the  sway  of  the  political  disposition  of  the  country 
for  twenty-four  years  which  followed  the  year  1801. 
Under  one  and  another  scheme  of  his,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  maintaining  the  dignity  of  the  United  States, 
perhaps  of  befriending  France  and  injuring  England, 
Mr.  Jefferson  and  his  friends  tried  different  enter- 
prises, which  resulted  in  great  injury  to  the  maritime 
commerce  of  Massachusetts.  Probably  they  were- 
not  distressed  that  such  injury  took  place.  Such  a 
measure  was  the  Embargo  of  1807,  in  which  the 
nation  ordered  that  no  vessels  should  leave  her  ports 
for  any  part  of  the  world.  Such  a  measure  again 
was  the  War  of  1812-1814,  in  which  the  nation  at- 
tempted to  restrict  the  arrogant  pretensions  of  Eng- 
land. In  each  of  these  periods  a  check  was  put  to- 
the  rising  tide  of  maritime  success  which  had  distin- 
guished the  New  England  States,  and  Massachusetts 
particularly.  From  the  very  moment  when  the  new 
constitution  was  adopted,  the  figures  which  show 


840  MANUFACTURES. 

this  progress  are  interesting ;  they  represent  an 
amount  of  wealth  small,  indeed,  compared  with  the 
wealth  of  Massachusetts  to-day,  but  enormous  in 
comparison  with  the  poverty  of  Massachusetts  at  the 
end  of  the  Revolution. 

If  the  New  Englander  cannot  work  in  one  way  he 
must  work  in  another.  From  the  beginning  he  has 
hated  laziness,  and  the  distinction  of  the  social  order 
in  New  England  is  based  upon  the  contempt  with 
which  the  true  Newr  Englander  regards  a  man  who 
has  nothing  to  do.  Nothing  is  more  amusing  than 
the  observation  of  this  feeling  which  the  French 
officers,  who  were  our  allies  in  the  Revolution,  made 
from  time  to  time.  There  is  a  story  told  of  Count 
Hochambeau  himself,  that  he  had  to  stop  in  Con- 
necticut one  day,  that  a  blacksmith  might  set  his 
horse's  shoe.  As  the  French  party  fell  into  conver- 
sation with  the  group  of  Connecticut  farmers  who 
gathered  around  the  forge,  one  of  these  men  asked 
Rochambeau,  in  the  familiarity  of  American  life, 
"what  he  did  when  he  was  to  home?"  The  poor 
count  was  painfully  aware  that  he  did  nothing  at 
home,  but  he  said,  for  want  of  a  better  answer,  that 
he  was  a  marshal  of  France.  The  interlocutor  at 
once  replied  by  asking  what  a  marshal  did.  It  was 
fortunately  remembered,  that,  in  the  original  sense, 
a.  marechal  is  a  blacksmith,  and  the  general  verdict 
of  the  crowd  was  that  that  was  a  very  respectable 
home  occupation. 

Failing,  then,  the  right  to  go  to  sea,  which  is  as 
innate  a  right  of  the  descendant  of  a  Norseman  as 


MAN  UFA  CTURES.  34 1 

the  right  of  a  duck  to  go  into  a  pond,  the  New  Eng- 
lander  was  obliged  to  address  himself  to  other  in- 
dustries. As  matter  of  history,  it  is  curious  to  ob- 
serve that  the  planting  States  forced  upon  New  Eng- 
land her  manufacturing  system.  They  have  since 
complained  of  that  system  with  a  jealousy  more 
bitter,  if  possible,  than  that  which  Jefferson  and 
his  friends  felt  regarding  her  maritime  prosperity. 

But,  while  war  with  England  lasted,  the  nation 
must  be  able  to  provide  its  own  necessities.  Almost 
from  the  very  beginning,  New  England  had  had  a 
large  stock  of  what  have  been  called  the  "  homespun 
industries,"  'b  which  had  prospered  to  an  extent 
sufficient  to  arouse  the  attention  of  the  English  par- 
liament. Even  Chatham,  who  was  among  the  best 
friends  of  the  colonists  in  their  quarrel  with  the 
Crown,  had  said  distinctly,  '•  If  I  had  my  way,  thev 
should  not  make  a  hob-nail."  But  they  did  make 
hob-nails,  and  even  invented  machinery  for  making 
them  ;  and  it  is  said,  probably  on  good  authority, 
that  at  the  outbreak  of  the  war  seven  eighths  of  the 
clothing  used  in  Massachusetts  was  made  at  home. 
It  should  be  remembered  by  those  who  are  afraid 
that  woman  does  not  have  her  proper  place  in  the 
world,  that  this  clothing  was  largely  the  manufac- 
ture of  separate  homes,  and  was  the  result  of  what 
was  called  the  spare  time  of  the  women  of  families. 

It  was  necessary  to  have  little  centers  where  full- 
ing and  perhaps  dyeing  could  be  carried  on,  and 

*  The  phrase  is  Mr.  Weeden'u,  whosf  valuable  "  Economic  and  Social  History  of 
New  England  "  is  most  entertaining,  and  worthy  of  careful  study. 


342  MAN  UFA  C  TURES, 

there  were  some  public  looms  where  weaving  was 
done,  but  in  general  it  is  fair  to  say  that  seven 
eighths  of  the  people  of  the  colony  were  clothed  by 
the  work  of  their  wives  and  daughters.  The  same 
might  be  said  of  the  sheets  and  blankets  which  were 
in  use  in  all  these  homes,  of  the  towels  and  other 
"  napery."  Carriages  and  carts  were  made  at  home. 
The  Crown  had  tried  to  interfere  with  the  manufac- 
ture of  iron,  but  the  manufactures  had  gone  so  far 
forward  that  when,  in  the  Revolution,  the  States 
were  thrown  on  their  own  resources,  they  were  able 
to  cast  their  own  cannon  and  to  draw  the  tires  of 
their  own  wheels.  There  was,  therefore,  a  sufficient 
habit  of  manufacture  to  be  made  use  of,  when  ef- 
forts were  made  gradually  to  introduce  the  large 
manufacturing  processes  of  England  into  the  United 
States. 

When  the  treaty  of  peace  was  made  with  England, 
Franklin,  who  was  the  first  of  American  statesmen, 
had  to  deal  with  Shelburne,  who  wns  fortunately 
at  the  head  of  the  English  ministry.  Shelburne's 
name  is  now  forgotten,  but  his  correspondence  shows 
statesmanship  far  beyond  that  of  most  of  the  men 
who  were  around  him.  Unfortunately  his  councils 
did  not  long  direct  the  administration  in  England, 
and,  very  unfortunately  for  England,  counsels  not  so 
bold  prevailed.  Shelburne  proposed,  and  would 
gladly  have  consented  to,  an  entire  freedom  of  trade 
between  England  and  the  United  States.  Franklin 
on  his  part  would  gladly  have  granted  this,  but 
Shelburne  was  at  no  time  able  to  bring  the  English 


MANUFACTURES.  343 

government  to  his  views.  From  the  beginning  of 
the  new  nation,  therefore,  the  very  great  conven- 
ience of  collecting  the  national  revenue  by  import 
duties  led  to  the  establishment  of  duties  which  were, 
to  a  certain  extent,  protective  for  American  manu- 
factures. The  great  length  of  the  voyage  from 
Europe  to  America  and  its  cost,  added  to  this  pro- 
tection ;  the  dangers  of  that  voyage  when  England 
and  France  were  at  \var  added  still  further  to  it,  and 
when  the  policy  of  the  Southern  States  threw  the 
nation  into  war  with  England,  and  almost  all  com- 
merce from  Europe  was  suspended,  there  was  every 
temptation  to  the  capitalists  of  Massachusetts,  who 
could  no  longer  deal  with  every  other  part  of  the 
world,  to  establish  manufactures  at  home.  Such  a 
bounty,  as  it  may  be  called,  worked  admirably  for 
the  cotton  factories  which  were  already  established 
in  Rhode  Island,  in  Beverly,  in  "Waltham,  and  were 
proposed  in  some  other  parts  of  Massachusetts. 
Little  woollen  factories  sprang  up  in  different  re- 
gions, and  for  both  these  industries  the  water-power 
of  the  State  proved  more  than  ample. 

It  is  to  be  observed  that  the  success  of  water- 
power  for  manufacturing  purposes  depends  upon  two 
elements  :  the  fall  should  be  sufficient  to  drive  the 
machinery,  and  the  ponds  which  serve  as  reservoirs 
for  keeping  the  streams  at  a  proper  level  should  be 
ample.  The  great  Winnepiseogee  Lake  in  New 
Hampshire  is  an  admirable  reservoir  for  such  pur- 
poses ;  the  Merrimac  River,  therefore,  early  proved 
one  of  the  continuous  streams  whose  ilow  could  be 


344  MANUFACTURES. 

relied  upon.  It  may  be  said  in  passing,  that  the 
great  success  of  Rhode  Island  as  a  manufacturing 
State,  is  due  to  the  great  number  of  ponds  in  the 
State  which  are  fed  by  the  moisture  from  the  ocean 
passing  over  this  State  from  the  east  as  well  as  from 
the  southwest. 

Under  this  condition  of  things,  the  more  impor- 
tant waterfalls  of  Massachusetts  were  used  more  and 
more  for  the  establishment  of  manufactories,  around 
which  have  since  grown  up  large  and  important 
cities.  Such  is  the  history  of  the  birth  of  Waltham, 
Lowell,  Lawrence,  Holyoke  and  of  Fall  Eiver.  At 
Lawrence,  it  was  necessary  to  create  a  water-power 
by  the  erection  of  a  dam  where  there  was  no  impor- 
tant waterfall  before,  and  a  somewhat  similar  history 
is  that  of  the  waterfall  at  Holyoke.  As  the  manu- 
factures of  Massachusetts  increased,  and  as  the  at- 
tention of  her  people  was  more  and  more  drawn  to 
the  forms  of  industry  dependent  upon  them,  they 
used  not  only  water-power  but  steam-power.  All 
this  time  improvements  were  going  forward  in  the 
steam  engine,  and  the  cost  of  fuel  became  less  as  the 
internal  communications  improved  by  means  of  which 
the  coal  of  Pennsylvania  was  brought  to  market. 

The  result  of  the  changes  thus  generally  indicated 
has  been,  that  the  people  of  Massachusetts,  who,  at 
the  end  of  the  Revolution,  relied  almost  wholly  upon 
fisheries  and  upon  navigation  for  their  prosperity, 
are  now  regarded  as  being  essentially  a  manufac- 
turing people.  The  contingent  of  the  food  of  the 
world  which  they  draw  from  the  sea  in  the  shape  of 


MANUFACTURES.  345 

fish  is  still  large,  and  fishermen  of  Massachusetts  now 
supply  annually  an  enormous  amount  of  food  thus 
obtained,  which,  in  the  circulation  of  commerce,  is 
exchanged  for  the  bread-stuffs  which  Massachusetts 
receives  from  the  West.  But  this  amount  of  pro- 
duction, which  would  have  been  thought  very  large  a 
century  ago,  is  insignificant  now  compared  with  the 
enormous  amount  of  wealth  added  to  the  world 
every  year  by  the  manufactures  of  the  State.  The 
necessity  of  making  machines  for  the  mills  had  de- 
veloped a  highly-trained  class  of  machinists.  These 
men  and  those  who  work  with  them,  have  proved  to 
have  a  remarkable  inventive  faculty,  and  not  a  year 
passes  without  some  new  invention,  which,  as  it  is 
developed,  reduces  the  amount  of  human  drudgery 
which  is  required,  and  increases  the  value  of  the 
victory  which  man  wins  over  brute  nature. 

The  fishermen  of  Essex  at  a  very  early  period  in 
our  history,  used  the  winter  months  when  they  were 
not  at  sea,  in  the  manufacture  of  shoes.  A  person 
riding  through  the  pretty  Essex  towns  may  still  see 
the  little  shoe-shop,  built  in  the  garden  or  perhaps 
in  the  front  yard  of  the  homestead,  where  the  father 
of  the  family  made  shoes  in  the  months  when  he  was 
not  catching  mackerel  or  cod.  This  industry  has 
developed  with  the  other  manufacturing  industries 
of  Massachusetts,  and  the  manufacture  of  leather 
shoes  and  boots  is  now  the  largest  of  the  many  man- 
ufacturing enterprises  of  the  State.  This  manufac- 
ture does  not  require  so  large  a  use  of  steam  or 
water-power  as  do  the  textile  manufactures  ;  it  can 


346  MANUFA  CTURES. 

be  carried  on  with  less  reference  to  the  ease  of 
transportation  of  fuel  or  to  the  necessities  of  water- 
power,  and  many  large  towns  and  cities  in  all  parts 
of  the  State,  are  based  upon  the  demand  of  the 
world  for  boots  and  shoes. 

The  reader  must  observe  the  willingness  of  the 
New  Englander  to  adapt  himself  to  new  circum- 
stances. It  would  seem  as  if  there  were  a  sort  of 
restlessness  in  the  blood  of  the  generations,  of  whom 
it  is  sure  that  the  ancestors  have  changed  one  hemi- 
sphere for  another  within  the  last  two  hundred  and 
fifty  years.  No  genuine  New  Englander  would 
thank  any  genie  or  guardian  angel  who  assured  him 
permanent  occupation,  such  as  is  thought  desirable 
in  Chinese  civilization,  in  one  calling,  from  his  birth 
to  his  death.  He  would  say  courteously,  "Thank 
you,  sir,  I  will  take  my  own  chances.  I  will  see 
what  comes  along."  This  facility  for  adapting  him- 
self to  changes  in  legislation,  in  politics  or  in  diplo- 
macy, has  been  of  great  value  to  the  Massachusetts 
man.  If  he  cannot  make  muskets  for  a  war  in 
Africa,  he  can  make  pistols  for  use  in  Texas.  If  he 
cannot  make  these,  he  adapts  his  shop  to  some  other 
line  of  invention  made  necessary  by  some  other  de- 
mand of  the  world.  If  people  do  not  want  Scotch 
shawls,  he  finds  that  they  do  want  merinoes ;  if  they 
do  not  want  merinoes,  he  inquires  if  they  do  not  want 
kersimeres.  There  has  never  been  that  fixed  deter- 
mination to  live  by  one  line  of  industry  only,  which 
constitutes  a  serious  difficulty  in  the  social  order  of 
other  manufacturing  countries. 


MANUFACTURES.  347 

On  the  other  hand,  it  has  proved  that  certain  en- 
terprises in  social  order  which  have  been  successful 
in  England,  have  not  succeeded  in  New  England. 
Thus  the  great  system  of  co-operative  buying  and 
selling,  instituted  at  Rochdale  in  England,  which  is 
working  out  results  of  enormous  importance  in  Great 
Britain,  has  never  taken  a  firm  hold  in  Massachu- 
setts. The  reason  seems  to  be  that  the  workman 
here  means  to  be  "  foot-free  "  for  whatever  new  en- 
terprise may  need  him.  He  may  be  wanted  in 
Duluth,  in  Seattle  or  at  Fort  Wrangel  next  week, 
and  he  does  not  care  to  invest  his  earnings  in  'such 
a  form  that  he  cannot  have  them  quite  ready  for  use 
in  some  distant  adventure. 

These  are  perhaps  speculations  outside  the  line 
of  story-telling  proper.  Whether  this  be  true  or 
not,  it  seems  to  be  certain  that  the  communities 
of  Massachusetts  are  among  the  most  productive  in 
the  world,  and  that  there  is  in  her  borders  as  large 
an  opportunity  as  has  been  found  in  any  social 
condition  for  the  happiness  of  the  individual  and 
the  healthy  development  of  the  family.  A  va- 
ried industry,  giving  an  opportunity  to  every  la- 
tent ability  in  her  children,  or  in  those  who  emi- 
grate to  her  —  this  has  been,  and  is,  the  policy  of 
Massachusetts. 

It  was  said  fifty  years  ago  that,  in  a  circle  of  ten 
miles  radius,  drawn  around  the  town  of  Worcester, 
which  calls  itself  the  "  Heart  of  the  Commonwealth," 
there  was  a  larger  range  of  manufacture  than  in  any 
circle  of  the  same  diameter  elsewhere  in  the  world. 


348  MANUFACTURES. 

This  remark  was  probably  true  then,  and  I  suppose 
it  to  be  true  now. 

From  such  causes  as  have  been  described,  and 
from  the  lessons  well  learned  in  her  history,  the  peo- 
ple of  Massachusetts  have  earned  a  peculiar  prosper- 
ity. Judges,  not  friendly,  have  acknowledged  that, 
for  the  general  purposes  and  wishes  of  mankind,  she 
has  attained  a  social  order  not  second  to  that  of  any 
community  in  the  world,  —  perhaps  in  advance  of  that 
attained  by  any  other.  However  this  may  be,  I  may 
close  this  book  by  saying, — that,  unless  the  genera- 
tion of  to-day  abandons  the  habits  and  principles 
which  have  ruled  Massachusetts  in  the  past,  the  writer 
who  tells  her  story  in  the  middle  of  the  Twentieth 
Century,  —  while  he  may  have  new  industries  to  de- 
scribe, or  new  adventures  to  explain,  —  will  write  of 
a  happy  and  contented  people,  prosperous  and  free. 


THE   STORY   OF   MASSACHUSETTS. 


LEADING   EVENTS. 

THE  leading  events  around  which  the  story  of  the  old  Bay 
State's  rise  and  progress  crystallize  are  given  in  the  following 
brief  recapitulation.  An  array  of  dates  really  tells  little,  and 
the  chief  Massachusetts  happenings  have  been  referred  to 
chronologically  in  the  introductory  chapter  of  this  volume. 
But  for  the  purpose  of  centering  attention  upon  the  main  events 
in  the  story,  the  epitome  thought  desirable  by  the  editor  is  here 
appended. 

1000.     Coast  of  Massachusetts  visited  by  Leif. 
1497.     Cabot  passes  along  the  shore. 

1500-1.     Cortereal  visits  the  coast  and  enslaves  some  Indians. 
1602.     Gosnold  makes  a  settlement  at  Cuttyhunk,  but  abandons  it  the 
same  year. 

1620.     Pilgrim  Fathers  arrive  at  Cape  Cod  and  settle  at  Plymouth. 

1630.  The  Massachusetts  Colony  brings  its  charter  to  Massachusetts. 
John  Winthrop,  governor. 

1631.  July  4,  The  Blessing  of  the  Bay  launched  —  the  first  ship. 

1635.  The  Boston  Latin  School ;  the  first  free  school  in  the  Bay  State. 
Plymouth  had  a  school  already. 

1637.  Anne  Hutchinson   exiled.     Pequot    War.     The   strength  of  the 
Pequots  broken. 

1638.  Harvard  College  begins. 

1641.     "  The  Body  of  Liberties  "  adopted. 

1645.     The  first  negro  slave  returned  to  "  Guinea"  by  order  of  the  court. 
1649.     John  Winthrop  dies. 
1652.     The  mint  established. 
1657.     Quakers  hanged  in  Boston. 
1662.     The  charter  confirmed  by  the  King. 

1662-63.     "  The  Great  Bridge  "  built  across  Charles  River  at  Cambridge. 
1673.     Castle,  in  the  harbor  of  Boston,  burned. 
349 


350  LEADING  EVEN' 


1675-76.     Philip's  War. 

1686.     December  20 —  Sir  Edmund  Andres  arrives  in  Massachusetts. 

1689.     Popular  rising.     Andros  imprisoned. 

\5go.     Capture  of  Port  Royal. 

1692.     Salem  Witchcraft. 

1690-95.     The  first  worsted  mill  established  about  this  time. 

1706.     Benjamin  Franklin  born. 

1712.  Sperm  whale-fishery  begins. 

1713.  The  first  schooner   launched.     Peace   restored  by  the   treaty  of 
Utrecht. 

1714.  Tea  is  advertised  for  the  first  time;  it  had  probably  been  used 
earlier. 

1724.     The  first  insurance  office  in  Boston. 

1730.     Old  South  meeting-house  built  in  Boston. 

1731-32.     The  Board  of  Trade  reports  several  still-houses  in  Boston. 

1744.  War  with  France. 

1745.  Louisburg  taken  by  New  England  forces. 

1746.  D'Anville's  fleet  destroyed  by  tempests. 

1749.     King's  Chapel  built  in  Boston.     £183,649  sent  from  England  ire 
silver  to  pav  the  Crown's  debt  to  the  colony. 
1750-60.     Clover  introduced  in  farming. 
1755-60.     War  with  France  again. 
1760.     Paper  made  in  Milton-. 
1763.     The  Stamp  Act. 
1770.     Boston  Massacre. 
1773.     Tea  thrown  into  Boston  Harbor. 

1775.  Lexington  and  Concord  — siege  of  Boston  begins. 

1776.  March  17  — The  last  English  army  leaves  Boston. 
1778-79.     The  Springfield  Arsenal  established. 

1779.  Failure  of  Penobscot  expedition. 

1780.  Cotton  spun  and  woven  by  machinery  in  Worcester.     The  Consti- 
tution made  and  accepted.     John  Hancock  first  governor. 

1786.  Shay's  Rebellion. 

1787.  Cotton  woven  in  Beverly. 

1788.  Federal  Constitution  accepted. 

1789.  Manufacture  of    linen  duck   for  canvas.     Cotton  manufacture  in 
Pawtucket. 

1790.  Nail  machines  (Perkins's)  at  Amesbury. 

1792.     First  navigable  canals  in  the  United  States  opened  at  Montague 
and  South  Hadley. 

1792.  Charlestown  bridge  opened. 

1793.  Invasion  of  Yellow  Fever. 
1803.     Samuel  Adams  dies. 

1806.     Ice  trade  opened  by  William  Tudor. 
1808.     Middlesex  canal  opened. 


LEADING  EVENTS.  351 

1820.     District  of  Maine  made  a  separate  State. 

1825.  Lafayette  visits  Massachusetts. 

1826.  John  Adams  died  on  the  4th  of  July. 

1832.  First  invasion  of  Asiatic  cholera. 

1833.  Boston  &  Worcester  Railroad  opened  to  Newton  (the  first  steam 
railroad). 

1834.  Ursuline  convent  burned  by  a  mob  in  Charlestown. 

1840.  The  Unicorn,  first  steam  packet  from  England,  arrives  June  3, 
after  nineteen  days'  passage  from  Liverpool 

1848.     John  Quincy  Adams  died  at  Washington. 

1852.     Daniel  Webster  died  at  Marshfield. 

1865.     Edward  Everett  died  at  Boston. 

1874.     Charles  Sumner  died  at  Washington. 

1880.  September  17  —  The  city  of  Boston  celebrates  a  quarter-millennium 
of  its  history. 


THE   BAY   STATE'S   GOVERNORS. 


THE  chief  magistrates  of  Massachusetts  during  its  life  as  a 
province  and  appendage  of  the  Crown  of  England  and  its  exist- 
ence as  a  Commonwealth  are  of  interest,  historically  and 
chronologically.  The  following  list  is  therefore  given  as  a 
guide  to  the  better  understanding  of  the  story  told  in  this 
volume. 

COLONIAL    GOVERNORS. 


(Plymouth  Colony.} 

1620.     John  Carver. 
1621-1632.     William  Bradford. 


1633- 
1634. 
1635- 
1636. 
1637. 
1638. 


Edward  Winslow. 

Thomas  Prince. 

William  Bradford. 

Edward  Winslow. 

William  Bradford. 

Thomas  Prince. 
1639-1643.     William  Bradford. 
1644.     Edward  Winslow. 
1645-1656.     William  Bradford. 
1657-1667.     Thomas  Prince. 

(Massachusetts  Bay  :  under  the  first 
Charter.} 

1630-1633.     John  Winthrop. 

1634.  Thomas  Dudley. 

1635.  John  Haynes. 

1636.  Henry  Vane. 
1637-1639      John  Winthrop. 
1640.     Thomas  Dudley. 


1642-1643.     John  Winthrop. 

1644.  John  Endicott. 

1645.  Thomas  Dudley. 
1646-1648.     John  Winthrop. 
1649.     John  Endicott. 

1650      Thomas  Dudley. 
1651-1653.     John  Endicott. 
1654.      Richard  Bellingham. 


1655-1664. 
1665-1672. 
1673-1678. 
1679-1686. 
1692-1695. 
1697-1701. 
1702-1715. 
1716-1727. 
1728-1729. 
1730-1741. 
1741-1757. 
1757-1760. 
1760-1769. 
1769-1774. 
I774-I775- 


John  Endicott. 
Richard  Bellingham. 
John  Leverett. 
Simon  Bradstreet.* 
William  I'hipps. 
Earl  of  Bellomont. 
Joseph  Dudley. 
Samuel  Shute. 
William  Burnet. 
Jonathan  Belcher. 
William  Shirley. 
Thomas  Pownall. 
Francis  Bernard. 
Thomas  Hutchinson. 
Thomas  Gage. 


*  In  this  year  Andros  arrived,  and  what  is  called  the  "  Usurpation  "  by  our  early  writers 
begins. 

After  Andros  was  imprisoned,  Simon  Bradstreet  acted  as  "  President  "  till  a  convention 
was  called.     This  convention  chose  him  to  that  office  which  he  held  until  the  arrival  of  the 
Second  Charter.     By  this  "  Massachusetts  Bay  "  and  "  Plymouth  "  were  united: 
353 


S54 


THE  BAY  STATE'S  GOVERNORS. 


THE   GOVERNORS   OF  THE   STATE  OF   MASSACHUSETTS. 


(Under    the    State    Constitution    the 
Governors  are :) 

1780-1784.     John  Hancock. 

1785-1786.     James  Bowdoin. 

1787,  Oct.  8,  1793.  John  Hancock. 
(Died  in  office.) 

1794-1797.     Samuel  Adams. 

1797,  June  7,  1799.  Increase  Sum- 
ner. 

1800-1806.     Caleb  Strong. 

1807,  Dec.  10,  1808.     Jas.  Sullivan. 

1809.     Christopher  Gore. 

1810-1811.     Elbridge  Gerry. 

1812-1815.     Caleb  Strong. 

1816-1822.     John  Brooks. 

1823,  Feb.  6,  1825.  William  Cur- 
tis. (Died  in  office.) 

1825-1833.     L.  Lincoln. 

1834,  Mar.  i,  1835.     John  Davis. 

1836-1839.     Edward  Everett. 

1840.     Marcus  Morton. 

1841-1842.     John  Davis. 

1843.     Marcus  Morton.  - 


1844-1850.     George  Nixon  Briggs. 
1851-1852.     George  S.  Boutwell. 

1853.  John  H.  Clifford. 

1854.  Emery  Washburn. 
1855-1857.     Henry  J.  Gardner. 
1858-1860.          Nathaniel      Prentiss 

Banks. 

1861-1865.     John  Albion  Andrew. 
1866-1868.     Alexander  H.  Bullock. 
1869-1871.     William  Claflin. 
1872,   May    I,    1874.       William    B. 

Washburn.      (Resigned    May    ir 

1874.       Chosen    U.    S.    Senator, 

April  17,  1874.) 
1875.     William  Gaston. 
1876-1878.     Alexander  H.  Rice. 
1879.     Thomas  Talbot. 
1880-1882.     John  Davis  Long. 
1883.     Benjamin  F.  Butler. 
1884-1886.     George  D.  Robinson. 
1887-1889.     Oliver  Ames. 

1890.  John  Q.  A.  Brackett. 

1891.  William  E.  Russell. 


INDEX. 


Acadia,  ceded  to  England,  207. 

Adams,  John,  defends  Captain  Preston,  245 ; 
demands  a  navy,  285 ;  reports  on  navy, 
290;  on  obedience  to  law,  301;  frames 
State  Constitution,  302. 

Adams,  Samuel,  at  Boston  Massacre,  244 ; 
at  Boston  Tea  Party,  247. 

Amsterdam,  Pilgrims  at,  25. 

Andrew,  Governor  John  A.,  228,  327,  331. 

Andros,  Sir  Edmund,  administration  of,  14; 
imprisoned,  14,  174;  appointed  governor 
of  the  Province  of  New  Englaud,  169; 
his  arbitrariness,  176;  end  of  his  govern- 
ment, 175. 

Annapolis,  attack  on,  209. 

Attucks,  Crispus,  322. 

Austin,  Anne,  the  Quaker,  132,  134. 

Ball  game,  early,  on  Boston  Common,  So. 

Barrett,  Colonel,  commander  of  provincials 
at  Concord,  258. 

Belcher,  Jonathan,  Governor,  226. 

Bellingham,  Richard,  56. 

Bellomont,  Lord,  colonial  governor,  184,  226; 
popularity  of,  227. 

Benham,  Gen.,  on  English  occupation  of 
Bunker  Hill,  269. 

Bernard,  Francis,  Governor,  226,  227. 

Berniere,  Ensign,  at  Concord,  252. 

Bishop,  Bridget,  of  Salem,  177. 

Blackstone,  William,  at  Boston,  59,  62. 

Blessing  of  the  Bay,  122,  125. 

Boston  in  Lincolnshire,  24. 

Boston,  settled,  59;  location  of  first  houses, 
59;  named,  66;  early  religious  controver- 
sies in,  97,  107;  prosperity  of,  184. 

Boston  Common,  75. 

Boston  Massacre,  the,  240. 

Bowdoin,  James,  Governor,  in  Shay's  Re- 
bellion, 306. 


Boston  Tea  Party,  the,  247. 

Bradford,  William,  22,  23,  25,  34,  3r>,  4,,  _,,. 

Bradford,  Mrs.,  drowning  of,  42. 

Bradstreet,  Simon,  56,  165. 

Breed's  Hill,  270,  276. 

Brewster,  William,  21,  22,  25,  29,  34,  30,  47. 

Brooke,  Lord,  90. 

Bunker,  George,  of  "  Hunker's  Hill,"  266. 

Bunker's  Hill,  267  ;  selected  by  Committee 

of  Safety,  268  :  entrenched,  268:  bonil>.m!- 

ment  of,  271 ;  battle  of,  277,  282. 
Burden,  Anne,  the  Quaker,  135,  136. 
Burgoyne,    Gen.,   on     Hunker's    Hill,    207. 

272. 

Burnet,  William,  Governor,  22f>,  227. 
Burroughs,  George,  of  Wells,  ,77. 
Buttrick,  Major,  leader  of  British  at  Concord. 

260. 

Cambridge,  established,  65  ;  abandoned,  66. 

Canso,  seized  by  the  French,  209. 

Canada,  Massachusetts'  operations  against, 
193,  195;  surrender  of,  230. 

Carver,  John,  28,  31,  34,  36  ;  made  governor, 
39- 

Charles  ir.,  King,  arbitrary  measures  of,  14, 
55,  181:  befriends  the  Quakers,  140;  dis- 
likes the  Massachusetts  Company,  163. 

Charlestown,     established,    58  :    selected   a 
capital  of  colony,  60;  emigrants  arrive  at, 
6 1 ;    abandoned   by  many  colonists,   62 
records  re-written,  63. 

Child,  Mrs.  L.  M.,  238,  324. 

Chilton,  Mary,  47. 

Christison,  Wenlock,  the  Quaker,  140. 

Clapp,  Captain  Roger,  recollections  of,  63,. 
73- 

Clarke,  Dr.  John,  163. 

Clarke,  Mary,  the  Quaker,  136. 

Clifton,  Richard,  of  Hawtry,  21,  22,  33,  25. 


355 


356 


INDEX. 


Coddington,  William,  56,  in. 

Collier,  Sir  George,  English  commander  at 
Castine,  296. 

Colonists,  character  of,  13. 

Commerce,  early,  125,  184. 

Concord,  the  affair  at,  259. 

Connecticut,  settled,  13. 

Continental  army,  recruited  from  Massachu- 
setts militia,  16,  17. 

Constitution,  the  frigate,  312,  314,  316. 

Cooper,  Fenimore,  story  of  the  frigate  Con- 
stitution, 317,  318. 

Corey,  Giles,  of  Salem,  178. 

Corey,  Martha,  of  Salem,  177. 

Cotton,   John,   93,  94,  95,  96,  97,  100,   104, 

Court  of  Assistants  formed,  68. 
Cradock  House,  The,  in  Medford,  72. 
Cushman,  Robert,  31,  32,  37. 

D'Anviile,  Admiral,  leads  an  expedition 
against  Boston,  222  ;  failure  of  expedition, 
223. 

Davenport,  John,  56. 

Davis,  Isaac,  of  Acton,  at  Concord,  259. 

Deerfield,  attack  on,  200. 

Derby,  John,  takes  news  of  Lexington  to 
England,  250. 

Dexter,  Dr.,  27,  29. 

Dorchester,  established,  58;  settled,  61. 

Dorchester  in  England,  51. 

Dorchester  Neck  (see  South  Boston). 

Downing,  Emanuel,  56. 

Duchambon,  French  commander  at  Louis- 
burg,  219. 

Dudley,  Joseph,  President  of  Massachusetts 
Bay,  168. 

Dudley,  Joseph,  Governor,  226. 

Dudley,  Thomas,  56,  63,  64,  65,  66,  68,  72, 
93- 

Dustin,  Hannah,  198. 

Dyer,  Mary,  the  Quaker,  135,  139,  140. 

Dyer,  William,  136. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  65. 
Endicott,  John,  54,  57,  138. 
English  dissatisfaction  at  the  Massachusetts 

colonists,  164. 
Everett,  Edward,  on  the  Pilgrims;  37. 

Faneuil,  Peter,  a  slave  trader,  321. 
Farrar,  Sir  George,  35. 

Tish,  Captain,  of  the  sloop  Tyrannicide,  288. 
Fish-dinners  on  Saturday,  121. 


Fisher,  Mary,  the  Quaker,  132,  134 
Fisheries   of    Massachusetts,    13,    181,   345 ; 

influence  of,  in  America,  51,  120,  122. 
French  and  Indian  War,  15,  187. 
Frontenac,  the  French  Governor  of  Canada, 

'93- 

Gage,  Thomas,  Governor,  15, 226,  249 ;  sends 
reinforcements  to  Lexington,  254;  on  Bun- 
ker's Hill,  279. 

Gager,  Mr.,  early  physician,  70. 

George  in.,  King,  16;  ascends  the  throne, 
232  ;  defied  by  Massachusetts  towns,  239. 

Goode,  Sarah,  of  Salem,  177. 

Gosnold,  discovers  Massachusetts,  12. 

Grenville,  Lord,  prime  minister,  233,  234. 

Gridley,  the  engineer  at  Louisburg,  214. 

Hale,  Nathan,  239. 

Hale,  Mrs.,  of  Beverly,  178. 

Hale,  Robert,  89. 

Hallett,  Andrew,  success  of,  291. 

Harvard  College  in  the  Civil  War,  331. 

Haverhill,  Massacre  at,  198. 

Heath,  General;    his  account  of  the  march 

to  Concord,  253. 
Higginson,  Rev.  Francis,  55. 
Holland,  the  refuge  of  the  Pilgrims,  24;  a 

"  harbor  for  heretics,"  28. 
Howe,  General,  at  Bunker's  Hill,  277,  281. 
Hull,  Captain  Isaac,  of  the  Constitution,  314, 

318- 

Humphrey,  John,  56. 
Hutchinson,   Anne,  13,  92,  94,  95,  97,  < 


Hutchinson,  William,  99. 

Hutchinson,  Edward,  100. 

Hutchinson,  Thomas,  Governor,  226 ;  indeci- 
sion of,  235  ;  mobbed,  237;  at  Boston  Mas- 
sacre, 243,  244;  recalled,  249. 

Indians,  troubles  with,  13,  14,  15,  16,  147, 148, 
187,  190,  197,  200 ;  tribes  in  New  England, 
145;  at  Cambridge,  151. 

Iroquois,  strength  and  friendship  of,  188. 

James  i.,  King;  tries  to  buy  Scrooby  Manor, 
22 ;  angered  at  the  Pilgrims,  23  ;  bigotry 
of,  50. 

Jepson  at  Leyden,  27. 

Johnson,  Captain,  of  Roxbury,  in  the  Massa- 
chusetts war,  158. 

Johnson,  Edward,  Recollections  of,  63,  74. 


1XDEX. 


357 


Johnson,  Isaac,  56. 

Jones,  Captain  Thomas,  of  the  Mayflower, 
39,  46. 

King  William's  War,  196. 
Knight,  Eliza,  48,  52. 

La  Crosse  on  Boston  Common,  80. 

Leddra,  William,  the  Quaker,  140. 

Lewis,  John  J.,on  Leyden,  29. 

Lexington,  affair  at,  256;  spreading  the  news 
of,  262. 

Leyden,  its  appearance,  25;  Polyandus' 
description  of,  26;  Pilgrims  in,  27. 

Lincoln,  General  Benjamin,  in  Shay's 
Rebellion,  306. 

Lincoln,  President ;  receives  Massachusetts 
troops,  330. 

Lion,  The,  cargo  of,  68. 

Louisburg,  importance  of,  207,  208;  expe- 
dition against,  211;  besieged  by  New 
Englanders,  213;  defenses  at,  216;  cap- 
tured, 15,  220;  restored  to  France,  224. 

Lovell,  General,  at  Castine,  295. 

Lowell,  John,  drafts  the  Bill  of  Rights,  323. 

Manufactures  in  Massachusetts,  334.  342,  344. 

Martin,  Christopher,  32,  36. 

Mason,  Captain,  in  the  Pequot  War,  148. 

Massachusetts,  discovered  and  settled,  12  ; 
charter  of,  13;  early  troubles  in,  14; 
charter  revoked,  14;  new  charter  of,  15; 
leads  against  taxation,  16 ;  freedom  from 
foreign  invasion,  16;  supports  .he  Revolu- 
lution,  17;  prosperity  of,  17;  passion  for 
work  of,  18 ;  founder  of,  51;  first  govern- 
ment in,  68;  early  thought  in,  116;  early 
population  of,  117;  freedom  of  action  in, 
119;  fisheries  of,  120;  ship-building  in, 
122;  early  trade  in,  124;  early  schools  in, 
126;  self-dependence  of,  128;  the  Quakers 
in,  130,  136,  141;  Indians  in,  145;  Indian 
name  of,  146;  in  King  Philip's  War,  154; 
victorious  over  King  Charles,  166 ;  rising 
against  Andros,  174;  imports  cotton,  180 ; 
industries  of,  182  ;  settlement  of  towns  in, 
183;  prosperity  of,  184,  186;  able  to  take 
care  of  herself,  185 ;  given  new  charter, 
225;  supports  Governor  Shirley,  226;  in- 
dependent of  the  Crown,  238 ;  defies  George 
in.,  239;  Congress  of,  on  Battle  of  Bun- 
ker Hill,  278;  operations  of,  at  sea,  284, 
287,  294,  297  ;  Constitution  framed,  302  ; 
debt  after  Revolution,  303  ;  disaffection  in, 
303 ,  305  ;  in  second  war  with  England,  310; 


position  as  to  the  slave-trade,  320,  326 ;  in 
the  Civil  War,  328,  333;  industries  and 
manufactures  in,  334;  commerce  injured, 
339;  men  of,  346,  policy  of,  347. 

Massachusetts  Bay,  chartered,  12. 

Massachusetts  Company,  The,  formed,  53. 

Massasoit,  the  Indian,  145,  151,  152. 

Mather,  Cotton,  179;  his  Magnalia,  63. 

Mather,  Increase,  dispatched  to  England. 
172. 

Maverick,  Samuel ;  his  disputes  with  the 
Boston  colonists,  163. 

Mayflower,  The,  purchased  by  the  Pil- 
grims, 34;  sails  for  America,  38;  at  Cape 
Cod,  39;  returned  to  England,  46. 

McLane,  General,  at  Castine,  293,  295. 

Medford,  early  house  in,  72. 

Morton  of  Merrymount,  37,  70. 

Munroe,  Sergeant  William,  at  Lexington,  256. 

Narragansetts,  The,  147;  war  against,  157. 

New  England  as  a  field  for  adventure,  52. 

Nicholson,  Governor,  195. 

Norridgewock,  attack  on,  202. 

Norton,  John,  165. 

Nourse,  Rebecca,  of  Salem,  177. 

Nowell ;  Increase,  56,  1 1 1 . 

O'Brien,  Captain,  first  officer  of  American 

Navy,  284. 

Old  Colony,  The,  united  to  the  Bay  State,  48. 
Old  Ironsides  (see  Constitution). 
Oliver,  Andrew,  refuses  to  resign,  235  ;  hung 

in  effigy,  236;  resigns,  237. 
Osborn,  Sarah,  of  Salem,  177. 
Otis,  Harrison  Gray,  account  of  Percy's 

march,  255. 

Palfrey,  John  G.,  on  salt-fish  dinners,  rci  . 
on  Lexington  and  Baltimore,  329. 

Parker,  John,  Captain  of  provincials  at  Lex- 
ington, 255  ;  his  account  of  the  affair,  25;. 

Parris,  Elizabeth,  of  Salem,  176. 

Parris,  Samuel,  of  Salem,  176. 

Pearce,  Captain  of  the  Lion,  89. 

Penobscot  occupied,  16. 

Pepperell,  William,  given  command  of  expe- 
dition against  Louisburg,  21 1 ;  knighted, 
221. 

Pequot  Indians,  13  ;  encounters  with,  147  ; 
war  with,  149- 

Percy,  Earl,  commands  British  march  on> 
Lexington  and  Concord,  251;  retroat  of, 
261. 


358 


INDEX. 


Perkins,  John,  89. 

Philip,  the  Indian  "King,"  13,  14,  150;  his 
ambition,  152  ;  his  war  against  the  whites, 
'53- 

Phillips,  George,  58,  6!,  69,  70. 

Phillips,  Zerubabel,  62. 

Phipps,  Sir  William,  in  Salem  Witchcraft, 
177;  leads  attack  on  Port  Royal,  193; 
governor,  226. 

Phipps,  Lady,  in  Salem  Witchcraft,  178. 

Pilgrims,  the,  at  Amsterdam,  25  ;  at  Leyden, 
28;  seek  to  leave  Holland,  30;  apply  to 
Council  of  Virginia,  31  ;  combine  for  emi- 
gration, 33  ;  departure  in  the  Speedwell, 
34  ;  departure  from  Plymouth,  38  ;  at  Cape 
Cod,  39;  compact  at  Cape  Cod,  39;  land 
at  Plymouth,  41;  first  houses,  41;  life  at 
Plymouth,  44. 

Pine-Tree  shillings,  181. 

Pitcairn,  Major,  at  Lexington,  254,  256. 

Plymouth,  settlement  of,  12 ;  landing  place 
of  the  Pilgrims,  41. 

Plymouth  Rock,  47. 

Pollard,  Ann,  76. 

Port  Royal,  attack  on,  193. 

Pownnll,  Thomas,  Governor,  226,  227. 

Prescott,  Gen.,  at  Bunker's  Hill,  270,  277. 

Preston,  Captain,  British  leader  in  Boston 
Massacre,  242  ;  tried  for  murder,  245. 

Prince,  Thomas,  on  Leyden,  29. 

Provincetown,  first  landfall  of  the  Pilgrims, 
39- 

Puritans,  the,  strength  of,  in  England,  51 ;  in- 
fluential leaders  among,  56 ;  settle  Charles- 
itown,  60 ;  grit  of,  63 ;  early  experiences  of, 
64 ;  trials  of,  67 :  houses  of,  72 ;  famine 
among,  73  ;  religious  differences  among,  96, 
107;  expel  Anne  Hutchinson,  113;  per- 
secute the  Quakers,  133,  141;  strength  of , 
.143  ;  end  of  Puritan  Commonwealth,  167. 

(Quakers,  the,  130;  persecution  and  punish- 
ment of,  137. 

•Quebec,  operations  against,  13. 
Queen  Anne's  War,  15. 
Quincy,  Josiah,  245. 

Randolph,  Edmund,  167. 
Rasle,  the  Jesuit,  202,  203. 
Revolutionary  War,  its  causes,  16. 
Robinson,  Charles,  founds  Lawrence  in  Kan- 
sas, 327. 

Robinson,  John,  21,  22,  25,  27,  29,  30,  49. 
Robinson,  William,  the  Quaker,  139,  140. 


Rochambeau  and  the   Connecticut  farmer, 

340. 
Rynshay,  William,  56. 

Salem,  colonized,  12;  established,  55;  Win- 

throp  at,  57. 

Salem  Witchcraft,  the,  176,  179. 
Saltonstall,  Captain,  at  Castine,  295,  296. 
Saltonstall,  Sir  Richard,  56,  61. 
Samoset,  the  Indian,  45,  145. 
Say  and  Seal,  Lord,  90. 
School,  early,  126,  127. 
Scrooby,  Manor-house  at,  21. 
Seven  Years'  War,  16. 
Sewell,  Judge,  Penitence  of,    179;    on  the 

slave-trade,  322. 
Shay,  Daniel,  leads  an  insurrection  known  as 

"  Shay's  Rebellion,"  305,  306,  307;  defeat 

of,  308. 

Shattuck,  Samuel,  the  Quaker,  141. 
Shepard,  General,  leader  of  State  troops  in 

Shay's  Rebellion,  305,  306,  307. 
Ship-building  in  Massachusetts,  122,  123. 
Shirley,   William,  proposes  the  capture    of 

Louisburg,  210;    honored   for  same,  221  ; 

governor,  226 ;  his  ability,  226. 
Shute,  Samuel,  governor,  226.  . 

Smith,  Colonel,  at  Concord  and  Lexington, 

254,  255,  258,  260. 
South  Boston,  settled,  61. 
Southworth,  Edward,  28. 
Speedwell,    The,    purchased     by    the    Pil- 
grims, 34;  repaired,  38;  abandoned,  38. 
Stamp  Act,  proposed,  233  ;  introduced,  235 ; 

repealed,  245. 

Standish,  Captain  Miles,  28,  34,  36,  46,  47. 
Stevenson,   Marmaduke,   the    Quaker,    139, 

140. 
Stoughton,  Judge,  in  Salem  Witchcraft,  177. 

179. 

Sumner,  Charles,  and  President  Lincoln,  330. 
Sumner,  George,  on  Leyden,  29. 
Symmes,  Mr.,  the  preacher,  105,  112. 

Thacher,  Mrs.  suspected  of  witchcraft,  178. 
Thanksgiving    Day,  first   American,  47;  at 

Boston,  89. 
Thayer,   Eli;    plan   for  colonizing   Kansas, 

327- 
Tituba,  slave  to  Samuel  Parris,  176,  179. 

Underbill,  Captain,  in  the  Pequot  War,  148. 
Upsal,  Nicholas,  the  Quaker,  133,  135- 
Usher,  Hezekiah,  178. 


INDEX. 


359 


Vane,  Sir  Henry,  13,  91,  93,  94,  97,  105,  112. 
Vaughan,  William  at  Louisburg,  213. 
Virginia,    joins    Massachusetts  in  resisting 

taxation,  16. 
Virginia  Company,  The,  and  the  Pilgrims, 

32. 

Walker,  Quork,  case  of,  323. 

Walpole,  Horace,  on  matters  about  Boston, 
280. 

Waltham,  controversy  over  early  settlement, 
61. 

Wampum,  value  and  importance  of,  as  cur- 
rency, 125. 

Ward,  Nathaniel,  56. 

Ward,  Thomas,  the  sailor,  289. 

Warren,  Commodore,  joins  expedition  against 
Louisburg,  211 ;  made  Admiral,  221. 

Washington,  George,  advises  Constitution  of 
United  States,  17 ;  on  conquest  of  Canada, 
231. 

Webster,  Daniel,  protests  against  the  "  Mis- 
souri Compromise,"  326. 

Weir's  picture  of  the  Pilgrims,  34. 

Weld,  Joseph,  of  Roxbury,  113. 


Weston,  Thomas,  32. 

Weymouth,  established,  55. 

Wheeler,  Sir  Francis,  195.     • 

Wheelwright,  John,  93,  108,  109,  in. 

White,  John,  "founder  of  Massachusetts," 
5",  53,  120. 

White,  Peregrine,  birth  of,  42. 

Willard,  Rev.  Mr.,  of  the  Old  South  Church, 
,78. 

William  in.,  King,  14;  war  called  by  his 
name,  15  ;  imposes  a  new  charter,  225. 

Williams,  John,  183,  201. 

Williams,  John  Forster,  popular  naval  cap- 
tain, 289,  292. 

Williams,  Roger,  89,  130,  ,3, ,163. 

Wilson,  Rev.  Mr.,  early  minister,  69,  70,  72, 
94,  95,  104,  105. 

Wincob,  John,  secures  a  patent,  32. 

Winslow,  Edward,  28,  34,  36,  41. 

Winslow,  Governor,  in  the  Narragansett  war, 

«57- 
Winthrop,  John,  12,  56,  57,  58,  59,  62,  63,  64, 

65,  66,  89,  91,  93,  103,  113,  121,  122,  163. 
Wishing  Stone,  The,  76. 
Wolfe,  General,  15. 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  STATES. 

EDITED    BY    ELBRIDGE    S.    BROOKS. 

THE  Story  of  Massachusetts  is  the  eighth  issue  in 
the  proposed  series  of  graphic  narrations  descriptive 
of  the  rise  and  development  of  the  American 
Union.  As  one  of  the  oldest  and  most  famous  of 
the  thirteen  commonwealths  that  united  for  liberty 
the  old  Bay  State  has  ever  stood  in  the  van  for 
progress,  humanity  and  liberty,  and  her  story,  as 
told  by  Dr.  Hale,  is  full  of  stirring  episodes  and 
actions  that  have  had  a  lasting  influence  on  the 
growth  and  the  greatness  of  the  American  Republic, 

In  the  production  of  so  comprehensive  a  series 
as  is  this  Story  of  the  States,  it  is  as  wise  as  it  is 
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THE    STORY  OF  THE   STATES. 


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The  Story  of  California  . 

The  Story  of  Connecticut 

The  Story  of  Missouri     . 

The  Story  of  Texas 

The  Story  of  Maryland    . 

The  Story  of  Delaware    . 

The  Story  of  the  Indian  Territory  . 

The  Story  of  Michigan    . 

The  Story  of  the  District  of  Columbia 

The  Story  of  Oregon 

The  Story  of  Maine 

The  Story  of  Pennsylvania 

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The  Story  of  Mississippi 

The  Story  of  Florida 

The  Story  of  Alabama     . 

The  Story  of  Tennessee  . 

The  Story  of  Arkansas    . 

The  Story  of  New  Jersey 


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The  Story  of  Ohio,  by  Alexander  Black. 
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The  initial  volumes  of  this  new  and  notable  contribution  to 
American  history  have  been  so  favorably  received  that  little 
•doubt  can  remain  as  to  the  need  of  the  series  they  inaugurate 
and  the  permanent  popularity  of  the  style  adopted  for  their 
telling. 

"  Of  the  series  instructively,"  says  the  Boston  Globe,  "  one 
can  hardly  say  too  much  in  praise.  In  a  new  field  it  contrib- 
utes essentially  and  influentially  to  the  right  estimation  of 
national  character  and  of  the  mission  of  the  future." 

I  —  NEW  YORK.     Every  American  should  read  this  book. 
It  is  not   dull  history.       It  is   story  based    on    historic   facts. 
"  With  all  the  fascinations  of   a  story,"   says   the  Journal  of 
Education,   "  it   still    remains   loyal   to   historic   facts  and  the 
patriotic  spirit." 

"  To  one  familiar  with  the  history  of  New  York  State  this  book  will  be  exceedingly  refresh- 
ing and  interesting.  Mr.  Brooks  is  an  entertaining  writer  and  his  story  of  New  York  will  be 
read  with  avidity.  He  is  no  novice  in  historic  writing.  This  book  will  add  to  his  reputation 
and  will  find  its  way  into  thousands  of  private  libraries."  —  Utica  Press. 

II  —  OHIO.     This  volume  has  been  received  with  the  most 
enthusiastic  approval.     No  existing  work  occupies  precisely  the 
same  field.     It  is  at  once  picture,  text-book  and  story.     Mr. 
Black's  skill  in  condensing  into  so  brief  a  compass  so  much 
valuable  matter,  his  deft  handling  of  all  the  varying  phases  of 
Ohio's  story  and  his  picturesque  presentation  of  what  in  other 
hands  might  be  but  the   dry  details  of   history  have  secured 
alike  popular  recognition  and  popular  approval. 

"  To  incorporate  within  some  three  hundred  pages,  even  an  intelligible  sketch  of  the  history 
of  Ohio  is  something  of  a  literary  feat,  and  to  make  such  a  sketch  interesting  is  still  more 
difficult.  Mr.  Black,  however,  has  succeeded  in  doing  this.  .  .  .  His  book  is  welcome 
and  valuable  and  is  well  adapted  for  popular  use  and  reference."  —  New  York  Tribune. 

"One  of  the  warm,  lively,  picturesque  narratives,  lighted  up  with  bits  of  personal,  human 
interest  and  clear  glimpses  of  a  people's  every-day  life  which  will  closely  interest  the  general 
reader."  —  Chicago  Times. 

III  —  LOUISIANA.     Mr.  Thompson's  brilliant  and  enter- 
taining outline  of  the  history  of  one  of  the  most  picturesque 
and  romantic  States  in  all  the  sisterhood  of  American  Common- 
wealths   is   full    of   grace  and   vigor,   yoked    to   characteristic 
description  and  a  pleasing  presentation  of  facts.     "  It  is,"  says 
the    Critic,    "  a   wonderfully    picturesque    account    of    a    land 


THE  STORY  OF  THE   STATES. 

abounding  in  interest   of  every  sort :    landscapes,   hereditary 
singularities,  mixed  nationality,  legends  and  thrilling  episodes." 

"  An  absorbing  romance  and  at  the  same  time  a  practical  and  instructive  history."  — Jour- 
nal of  Education. 

"  Mr.  Thompson's  prose  is  full  of  the  fire  and  spirit  of  poetry,  and  the  story  could  scarcely 
be  told  better  or  more  interestingly.  The  writing  is  free  from  all  prejudices  and  can  be  read 
with  a  like  interest  by  the  people  of  Illinois  and  those  of  Louisiana."  —  Chicago  Inter-Ocean. 

IV  — VERMONT.     Mr.  Heaton  has  not  only  made  a  clear, 
entertaining  and  practical  story  of  the  Green  Mountain  State, 
but  has  produced  a  book  that  stands,  at  present,  without  a  com- 
petitor, no  history  of  Vermont  having  been  published  for  over 
forty  years.     Every  Vermont  family  and  every  family  able  to 
trace   its  origin  to  the  Mountain  Commonwealth  should  find 
pride  and  pleasure  in  this  story. 

"  A  volume  that  should  attract  the  attention  of  all  lovers  of  every  phase  of  our  nation's 
story  and  every  admirer  of  sturdy,  persistent,  devoted  and  patriotic  endeavor. "—  Cincinnati 
Inquirer. 

V  — WISCONSIN.     A  graphic  and  practical  outline  of  the 
beginning  and  the  advance  to  prosperity  of  the  State  of  Wiscon- 
sin —  the  child  of  the  fur-trader  and  the  coureur  de  bois.     Mr, 
Thwaites'  position  as    Secretary  of   the  Wisconsin   Historical 
Society  has  afforded  him  unequalled  facilities  for  a  correct  and 
interesting  narrative,  while  his  intimate  acquaintance  with  every 
section  of  his  State  gives  an  especial  value  and  authority  to  his 
story  of  this  noble  Western  Commonwealth. 

VI  —  KENTUCKY.     This  volume  is  one  of  the  most  stir- 
ring and  picturesque  of  the  series.     Though  treating  her  theme 
as  a  story,  Miss  Connelly  has  yet  so  deftly  woven  the  romance 
and  the  reality  as  to  give  to  her  characters  a  connected  individ- 
uality and  shed  a  new  light  on  the  land  made  famous  by  Daniel 
Boone  and  Henry  Clay. 

VII  — NEW  MEXICO.     The  story  of  the  old  territory  that 
was  founded  by  Spanish  valor  and  Spanish  proselytism  and  de- 
veloped by  American  energy  and   American   pluck  reads  in 
many  places  like  an  old-time  romance  and  is  full  of  dramatic 
color  and  practical  endeavor.     It  links  the  conquistadores  of 
old  to  the  miners  and  "  boomers  "  of  to-day. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


I      1C   OCT171! 


RECEIVED 

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